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COPyRIGIfT DEPOSm 



THE COUNTRY LITE PRESS 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 



upon aTme 
in Rhode Island 




\n 



atherine Pyle 

Illustrated fey 
Helen B.Mason. 



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Copyright by the 

SocjETY OF Colonial Dames 

IN Rhode Island 

1914 




'CI,A393787 



TO ALL RHODE ISLAND CHILDREN 

Dear Girls and Boys: 

You may be descended from some of the brave men 
and women whose stories are told in this book, or you 
may, like them, have come to Rhode Island from across 
the sea and will some day be citizens of this famous little 
State. 

Whichever you are, these stories are written for you, 
to show you what kind of men and women laid the founda- 
tions of our State; to help you to understand how hard 
they worked to make it a good place for you to hve in, and 
to make you feel that when you do something fme or 
brave, you, too, are carrying on the work they began so 
fearlessly and steadfastly. 

So to you, the future citizens of Rhode Island, one of 
the thirteen original colonies, these true srories of her 
noble sons and daughters are dedicated. 
Esther Pierce Metcaij' , 
Alice Adams Johnson, 
Elizabeth Byron Cabot, 
Alice Hall Durfee Greene, 
Lyra Brown Nickerson, 

for the Society of Colonial Dames in the 
State of Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations. 




Table of ContentvS. 



I low, Once Upon A Time, As Some People Say, 

The Norsemen Came To Rhode Island ........ 3 

How, Once Upon A Time, Roger Williams Founded 

A Town In TiiE Wilderness 19 

How, Once Upon A Time, The Red Men And The 

White Men Made War Together :^^ 

How, Once Upon A Time, Rhode Island Gained 

Her Patent 53 

How, Once Upon A Time, The People Of Rhode 

Island Destroyed The "Gaspee" 69 

How, Once Upon A Time, Newport Learned About 

War 85 

How, Once Upon A Time, A Rhode Island Man 

Became The First Admiical Of The American 

xNTavy loi 

How, Once Upon A Time, A Rhode Island Boy 

Became A Famous General 117 

How, Once Upon A Time, The Battle Of Rhode 

Island Was Fought 139 

How, Once Upon A Time, A Rhode Island Boy 

Became A Famous Painter 155 

How, Once Upon A Time, A Rhode Island Man 

Became The Hero Of Lake Erie 173 

How, Once Upon A Time, Rhode Island Bore Her 

Part In The Confederation 191 



INTRODUCTION 

This book is published by the Society of Colonial 
Dames in Rhode Island for the benefit of children in 
Rhode Island schools, and of Rhode Island children who, 
though not in school, ought to know and be interested 
in the early history of the State. 

Miss Pyle has not tried to settle the many disputed 
points in early Rhode Island history, or to make her 
book in any way a systematic narrative account. Her 
object has been, rather, to interest her readers in the 
past by a series of pictures or stories, presented with all 
possible accuracy in matters of fact, but at the same time 
in language suited to young people. In such a book, 
tradition and imagination have their place as well as 
assured fact, and a story may illuminate a period more 
effectively than an orderly narrative. Throughout the 
volume, controverted questions have, for obvious rea- 
sons, been avoided so far as possible, and, where they 
could not be avoided altogether, they have been handled 
impartially. 

I have read Miss Pyle's manuscript carefully, and 
should not fail to thank the author for the willingness 
with which she has accepted such suggestions regarding 
statements of fact or style of treatment as seemed per- 
tinent. The Society at whose charge the volume is 
issued deserve warm praise for this new proof of their 
practical interest in Rhode Island history. I bespeak 
for the book the favorable attention of teachers and 
parents, and of Rhode Island children, especially the 
children of foreign birth or parentage, to whom the 



INTRODUCTION 

picturesque story of the State is not so familiar as it is 
to the native-born. If the book awakens new interest in 
the past, or helps to explain the present, or paves the 
way for a happier and more useful future, it will haw 
achieved its purpose, 

William MacDonald. 
Brown University, 
November, 19 14. 




Tvrker Burst from the Wood 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

As Some People Say, 

The Norsemen 

Came To 
Rhode Island^ 




A Viking Ship 



IT WAS a bright summer day in the year 985. 
The wind blew chill from off the shores of Ice- 
land and out to sea. It filled the painted sails 
of the little dragon-shaped ship that was setting out 
from the harbor. In the prow of the boat stood the 
Viking Biarne. His long hair blew about his face. 
His eyes were as keen and bright as those of a hawk 
as he looked up at the sails and then out at the open 
water before him. 

He and his men were starting out on a daring ex- 
pedition. Many of his friends thought it a very fool- 
ish one. He was sailing for Greenland, and neither 
he nor any of the sailors had ever gone that way be- 
fore. They knew almost nothing of the waters 
they would have to cross, and in those days there 
were no maps and charts of the ocean such as we 
have now. It needed a brave heart to start out on 
an ocean voyage in those days. But the Vikings 
were a bold and daring people. They loved the sea 
and its storms and dangers, and were always ready 
to set out on adventures. Already other Icelanders, 
as brave as Biarne, had dared to cross the unknown 
sea, and had made a settlement in Greenland. 

The wind was fair when Biarne and his men set 



6 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

sail. The little ship plunged boldly on its way. 
Soon Iceland dropped from sight behind them. 
Nothing was to be seen but the heaving ocean and 
the great dome of sky above. 

For days the little ship sailed straight on before 
the wind. It seemed as though the journey to 
Greenland might be a fair and short one. Then sud- 
denly came a change. A gray fog settled down about 
the ship. It was like a curtain. The sailors could 
not see where they were sailing, nor anything around 
them. The wind now changed round to the north, 
and began to drive the ship from its course. It rose 
to a gale that howled around the little vessel. The 
sails were taken in, but still the gale drove the ship 
before it, farther and farther to the south. The 
sailors did not know what dangers they might be 
driving into. They knew nothing of the great con- 
tinent that lay to the south of Greenland. They 
did not even know that the earth was round and had 
no edge. For all Biarne knew this gale might be 
driving his ship to the very end of the world, where 
he might sail over and be lost. 

This lasted for days, and then the gale began to 
die down. 

"The wind is changing," said Biarne. "Perhaps 
now the fog will lift." 

And so it did. Once more the sailors could see the 
sky and the ocean around them. For a day and a 
night they sailed, not knowing where they were. 
Then on the second morning a great shout rose 
among the men. "Land! Land!" they cried. There, 
off on the horizon, they could see a coastline like a 
low, blue cloud. 

They crowded to the side of the ship, pointing and 



THE NORSEMEN CAME TO RHODE ISLAND 7 

wondering. They wondered what land it could be, 
for they knew they were too far south for it to be 
Greenland. All this was long before the time of 
Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America. 

Biarne changed the course of his ship, and sailed 
over as close to the land as he dared to go. It was a 
low-lying country, with hills and streams and woods 
and green valleys. 

Biarne would not allow his men to land, for he did 
not know what beasts or wild men might be hidden 
in the forests; and, besides, the journey had already 
lasted longer than he had planned. So they sailed 
away toward the north again, leaving that pleasant 
coast behind them. 

But the story of what they had seen they carried 
with them to Greenland, and it was a strange tale to 
the ears of those who were waiting for them there. 
Little had any of those northern people guessed that 
a broad and fertile country lay there to the south of 
them. 

It was a story that many listened to and talked 
about, but none listened more eagerly than a certain 
man named Lief Ericson. 

Lief was a bold and daring man, loving adventure 
as he loved the breath of life. He was a man to hold 
to dreams, and to make them come true; and the 
dream he held to now was that of finding the fair 
southland and exploring it. 

For fifteen years after he heard Biarne 's tale he 
worked and toiled and planned, and at the end of 
that time he had saved enough money to buy a ship 
for himself and to hire men to sail it. The ship 
he bought was no other than the dragon-shaped 
vessel which had belonged to Biarne. 



8 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

It was with fair skies and favoring winds that Lief 
and his comrades set sail at last, and the fine weather 
was with them through all their voyage down to the 
southland. In due time they came to the shores 
that Biarne had told them of, and sailed into a shel- 
tered bay and dropped anchor." It was this harbor 
where they first anchored that many people have 
supposed was Mount Hope Bay. 

The time of year was early autumn. Nuts were 
ripening on the trees, and the first leaves were turning 
red when the Norsemen landed. Besides the nut 
trees there were fruit trees as wtII, cherries, mul- 
berries, and plums, though they were now past the 
time of bearing. There were fish in the streams, and 
game in the woods, as the Norsemen soon found. 
It was a land more rich and fertile than they had 
ever dared to hope to find it. 

The band of adventurers at once set about cut- 
ting down trees and making a shelter for themselves. 
As far as Lief could see, he and his men were the only 
living beings in all the land; but still there might be 
savages farther inland, and he warned his men to 
keep watch about the camp, and to have their weap- 
ons ready so they could protect themselves at a mo- 
ment's notice if necessary. 

Later on, when they began to explore the country, 
Lief divided his men into two bands. These bands 
took turns, one of them going off on expeditions, 
while the other stayed at home to guard the huts 
and provisions. The men in each band were told 
always to keep close together for the sake of safety. 

For some time the warning to keep together was 
carefully followed out, but one day, when the ex- 
ploring party came back to camp, it was found that 



THE NORSEMEN CAME TO RHODE ISLAND g 

one of their number was missing; it was a German, 
Tyrker by name. Lief was greatly troubled. He 
feared some misfortune had happened to the man. 
Taking twelve companions with him, he set out in 
search of the missing one. 

The little band had not gone far, however, when 
they heard a great sound of shouting and holloaing. 
A moment later Tyrker burst out from the woods 
nearby. He waved and beckoned, and shouted out 
some words, but he was so excited that he spoke in 
German, and the Norsemen could not understand 
what he was trying to tell them. As he came nearer 
they saw his mouth and face were smeared with some 
sort of juice, and his hands were full of luscious look- 
ing purple fruit. It was grapes he carried. The 
Norsemen had never seen any before. Tyrker had 
found them growing in the woods, and they reminded 
him so strongly of the vineyards of his own native 
country that he was wild with joy. 

After the Norsemen had tasted the fruit they were 
almost as delighted with his find as Tyrker was. 
Lief sent several of them off to gather the bunches 
and bring them back to the camp. The vines were 
so loaded down with fruit that not only did the Norse- 
men have all they could eat of them, but there were 
enough to dry and store away in the ship to carry 
home with them. 

Lief had, as yet, found no name for the new coun- 
try, but now he decided to call it V inland on account 
of the grapes that had been discovered there. 

For over a year Lief and his companions stayed 
in Vinland, hunting, fishing, and exploring. Then 
in the spring of 1002 they set sail for home, carrying 
with them a rich cargo of raisins and lumber. 



lo ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Great was the joy iii Greenland over the return of 
the adventurers, and over the lumber and fruit thev 
had brought with them. 

It was not many months after this that Lief's 
younger brother, Thorwald, made up his mind to see 
that new country, too. He hired thirty companions, 
and borrowed his brother's ship, and he, too, set sail 
one autumn day, as his brother had done before him. 

But his voyage was not to prove as peaceful as 
that of Lief. Misfortune and sorrow were to come 
upon that little band before the dragon-shaped 
vessel should return to Greenland. 

Thorwald had no trouble in finding the river and 
the bay that Lief had told him about. Some of his 
sailors had already been there, and could tell him ex- 
actly how to go. They could even tell him where to 
land, and could point out where Lief had built his 
"booths," as they called them. 

These booths were still standing. The summer 
storms had scarcely harmed them at all. They 
were almost exactly as Lief had left them, and Thor- 
wald and his men did not have to build others. 

They did a great deal of sailing up and down the 
coast, for in this way they could go farther than they 
could possibly have gone on foot. Everywhere 
there was loneliness, broken only by the sight of a 
deer, a fox, a lynx, or some other animal, and by the 
cries of the wild birds. But yet there were other 
human beings living in that land, as the adventurers 
were to find before long. 

One day Thorwald and his comrades landed on a 
point of shore with a wooded bluff above it and set 
about building a fire to cook their noon-day meal. 
They had not been there long when one of them hap- 



THE NORSEMEN CAME TO RHODE ISLAND ii 

pened to look up. There, standing on the bluff above, 
were a number of strange-looking people. They 
were dressed in the skins of wild animals, and were 
small and sallow, with ill-formed faces and shagg>- 
hair, and they were armed with bows and arrows. 

The man's cry of wonder made his comrades, too, 
look up, and they felt no little surprise and fear at 
the sight of the savages. 

For a few minutes the two parties stared at each 
other without moving. Then Thorwald stepped for- 
ward, and made motions for the savages to come 
down and talk with him. Instead of doing this the)- 
began to retreat slowly toward the woods behind 
them. One of the Norsemen, more eager than the 
rest, started forward to follow them. 

At this the savages seemed to become frightened. 
They turned and fled back to the woods, but before 
they reached it they stopped to send a flight of ar- 
rows down among the strangers. 

Thorwald gave a loud cry and sank to the ground. 
An arrow had pierced his body just below the arm. 
His followers gathered around him, full of grief and 
horror, and tried to help him, but they soon saw they 
could do nothing for him. He was dying. 

Thorwald himself knew this. He told them not to 
move him, but to let him lie there until all was over, 
and then to bury him where he had fallen. 

These last directions were carried out by his fol- 
lowers. His grave was made there in the wilderness, 
and a rough cross of wood was set up to mark the 
place. Then, with sad faces and heavy hearts, they 
went back to the boats, and sailed down to the camps. 

With Thorwald's death ended the second settle- 
ment in Vinland. His comrades had no longer any 



12 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLANJJ 

wish to stay on in that wild country where death 
might come to them at any moment. And a few 
months later they set sail for home. 

Many tears were shed in Greenland when the news 
of Thorwald's death was brought to his people. For 
years there was no further thought of venturing 
down to Vinland. 

Then in 1007 Thorlinn Karlsefenn (or Thorlinii 
the Hopeful, as he was called) bought three shii)s 
and gathered together 151 men, and made ready to 
try the adventure. 

Now the Norse women of those days were brave 
and hardy, like the men. Thorfinn had married a 
strong and daring woman named Gudrum.^ She 
loved her husband dearly, and when she heard that 
he was going to venture down into the country where 
Thorwald had lost his life she made up her mind to 
go with him. Six other brave women, the wives of 
the sailors, declared they, too, would go with their 
husbands. The men were willing to take them, for 
they knew how strong and brave their women were. 

Great preparations were made for this voyage. 
The three ships were loaded, not only with food and 
clothing, but with cattle, seed, tools, and everything 
that might be needed in going to a new country. 

But though Thorfmn and his companions had in- 
tended to settle in Vinland, they did not sail directly 
there. On the way they saw a fine, large bay, and 
they were so pleased with the appearance of it that 
they decided to land there and settle for the winter. 
But it was a hard winter for the voyagers. Instead 
of the mild, open weather they had hoped for, it 
was bitterly cold, with ice and snow and sleet. The 
streams were frozen so hard that they could not fish ; 



THE NORSEMEN CAME TO RHODE ISLAND 



i^ 



game was scarce; before the winter was over almost 
all their provisions had been used. 

One day a dead whale was washed up on the shore 
of the bay. There was great rejoicing when this was 
found. It was enough to last for weeks. They 
cut great sUces from it, and cooked them over the 
lire, and part of it they dried and stowed away for 
use later on. 

It was in the very midst of the coldest weather that 
a little baby was born to Gudrum. Snovu they named 
it, for that is a good Norse name. This, as far as 
we know, was the first white child born in America. 

In the spring, as soon as the weather permitted, 
Thorfinn and his people sailed to Vinland. They 
hoped to find it milder and more sheltered there, as 
indeed it proved to be. 

Lief 's booths were still standing, though the storms 
had partly destroyed them, so that they were of little 
use except to show where he had camped. It was 
necessary to build new ones and also to make an 
enclosure where the cattle could be kept. 

One day, when the settlers were busily at work, 
they were startled to see a band of savages appear 
from a wood nearby. The voyagers made haste 
to seize their weapons and make ready to defend 
themselves, but the savages made signs that there 
should be peace between them and the strangers. 
They had brought some dried fish and fruit, furs and 
skins of wild animals, that they wished to trade 
for tools and seeds. The Norsemen were very 
willing to do this, for they had more than enough of 
their own things, and what the savages brought 
would be very useful to them. After this there was 
much trading between the white men and the na- 



14 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

lives; " Skraelings" the Norsemen called them. The 
settlers grew quite used to seeing them around, and 
no longer dreamed of any danger from them. But 
danger there was, and they would have done well to 
guard against it. 

Among the cattle that the Norsemen had brought 
with them there was a bull that was very wild and 
fierce. One day this bull broke out of the enclosure 
and rushed away toward the forest, bellowing as it 
went. A number of the Norsemen ran after it, 
shouting, and trying to turn it back. 

It happened that a band of Skraelings was on the 
way to the camp at that very time. Suddenly the 
bull came charging through the woods toward them, 
with the Norsemen close behind it. The savages 
thought it was an attack, and they fled away, full 
of terror. 

For a whole month the Norsemen saw nothing 
more of them. They wondered what had become of 
them and why they no longer came to the booths. 
They never dreamed that the Skraelings were angry 
and were planning revenge. 

Then one morning, while the Norsemen were 
quietly going about their business, a flight of arrows 
sang about them. One man fell, shot through the 
head. Others of the Norsemen were wounded. 
Those who were unhurt ran to their booths, caught 
up their weapons, and returned the attack so fiercely 
that the savages fled, leaving several dead and 
wounded behind them. 

After this attack Thorfinn felt it would no longer 
be safe for him and his companions to remain in 
Vinland. There was no telling when the Skraelings 
might again return and try to avenge themselves, 



THE NORSEMEN CAME TO RHODE ISLAND 15 

so goods and cattle were gathered together, the ships 
were loaded as quickly as possible, and the adven- 
turers set sail again for Greenland. 

Thus ended the third and most important settle- 
ment the Norsemen ever made in Vinland. For a 
few years after this other Norsemen came at times, 
but they came principally to get lumber, which was 
of great value to them. But after the year 1350 
we hear no more even of these expeditions. For 
centuries Vinland was left wild and undisturbed. 
The savages roamed there at will, untroubled by the 
presence of any white man. 

In 1524 an Italian named Verrazzano sailed into 
Narragansett Bay and explored it. A hundred 
years later a Dutchman, Adrian Block, visited it, 
and Block Island was named for him ; but neither of 
these men did more than land on the shore for a short 
time. It was not until Roger Williams and his 
companions came there in 1636 that the land was 
really settled; and this was more than six centuries 
after Biarne's ship was blown down toward our shores 
on its wav from Iceland to Greenland. 






The Old Stone Mill 



NOTES 

1. There has been much discussion as to whether the Norsemen were 
the first to discover our New England shores. The Icelandic sagas give 
detailed accounts of voyages made by Biarne and others which might 
seem to indicate that Vinland, where the Norsemen settled, was some- 
where in Rhode Island. It was long thought that the old Stone Mill at 
Newport was built by them, but such was not the case. The Norsemen 
were t'liristians, and Professor Rafn suggested that it might have been 
built as a Christian baptistery. 

2. On his way north Biarne sighted two other places whicli may have 
been Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. 

3. Sometimes given as Gudrid; she was the widow of Thorwald. 




It Must Have Been a Strange Sight to See Williams in 
His Neat Black Suit Among the Half-naked Savages 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

Roger Williams Founded 

A Town In The 

Wilderness 




Roger Willijinis Leaver Salem 



IT WAS a bleak, cold day in February of the year 
163 T. An English vessel was slowly making its 
way up the Boston Harbor. On the deck stood a 
little group of people, all eagerly watching the 
strange, wild shore they were coming to. These 
people had come out from England to join the col- 
onists who had already settled in New England. 
Puritans the most of them were, and many of them 
had been persecuted at home because of their relig- 
ious beliefs. But in this new country they hoped to 
find liberty and the freedom to worship God as they 
pleased. 

Among those who landed when the ship at last 
cast anchor were the young clerg>'man, Roger Wil- 
liams, and his wife. Roger Williams was already 
known to many of the New England Puritans. They 
had heard of him as " a godly minister." They were 
well pleased that he had come out to join their 
colony, and they gave him a warm welcome. 

Very soon after Williams reached New England he 
was asked to become a minister in the Salem church. 
He accepted, but remained only a short time. The 
Boston church had never entirely separated from the 
Church of England, but Williams himself had left 
the English Church. 



2 2 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

In Salem he busied himself with teaching and 
preaching, and also began to seek out the Indians 
and make friends with them. 

Even before he had left England, Williams had 
heard a great deal about the American Indians and 
the miserable way they lived, knowing little or noth- 
ing about God or religion. His heart was filled with 
pity for them, and he longed to help and teach them. 
He felt that in many ways they were treated un- 
justly by the white settlers who had come among 
them. 

Williams often declared that the Indians were the 
only real owners of all the land in America, and that 
they were the only ones who had any right to give 
it away or sell it. 

These ideas were a great offence to the Puritans. 
What land they held had been made over to them by 
the King of England. He had given them a paper 
called a charter, and in it had granted them the 
land. It seemed almost like treason to say the king 
had had no right to do this, that it all belonged to 
the heathen savages. 

The colonists, indeed, had neither respect nor love 
for the Indians. They feared them almost more 
than they despised them. Terrible tales were told 
in the settlements of Indian uprisings and massacres; 
of how this or that settler had suddenly disappeared, 
and afterward been found lying dead, pierced through 
by an Indian arrow or scalped by an Indian toma- 
hawk. Many a stormy night the more timid of the 
colonists must have lain awake, fancying they heard 
the terrible war-whoop of the Indians in the whistling 
of the wind, or that the raindrops were the sound of 
Indian moccasins. 



ROGER WILLIAMS FOUNDED A TOWN 23 

But Williams paid little or no attention to these 
stories. He felt no fear of the savages. Often, in 
spite of all his wife could say to prevent him, he 
would start off alone for the Indian villages. There 
he would spend days at a time living in their wig- 
wams, eating their food, and sleeping on the heaps of 
skins or mats that were their beds, and talking to 
them of God and religion. His whole desire was to 
do them good, though perhaps they understood but 
little of what he told them. 

Many of the Indians knew some English, but Wil- 
liams felt he could do more for them if he were able 
to speak their language. He therefore set himself 
to learn it, though it was a hard and difhcult task. 
They had no alphabet; they had no books. They 
could not spell their words for him. All he could do 
was to listen to their strange guttural speech, and try 
to repeat the sounds, and understand what they 
meant. ^ 

He intended, later on, when he knew more about 
them, to write a book on their ways and customs, 
so that other white men could learn about them and 
perhaps help them. 

The New England Indians all belonged to the 
large, general tribe of Algonquins; but this was 
divided into a number of smaller tribes. Of these 
the Narragansetts were the most friendly and the 
Pequots the most cruel and treacherous. It was 
oftenest in the wigwams of the Narragansetts that 
Wilhams stayed. Their great chief Canonicus be- 
came his close friend, though, as we are told, that 
great sachem was "most shy" with all other Eng- 
lishmen. 

It must have been a strange sight to see Williams 



24 ONX^E UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

in his neat black suit, his white cuffs and collar, his 
high, stiff hat, and buckled shoes sitting there among 
the half-naked savages. In warm weather the Indi- 
ans woi'e little but a piece of deerskin, a belt, and 
moccasins. Often their faces were painted, and 
they wore feathers stuck in their coarse black hair. 
Around their necks hung necklaces made of the 
claws of animals strung together, or pieces of copper, 
or beads. 

Their wigwams, in which Roger Williams spent so 
many days, were made of poles fastened together 
near the top and covered with mats or bark. A hole 
was left in the top as a sort of chimney, and the fire 
was built directly under it. On wet or windy days 
the smoke was apt to be driven back into the wig- 
wams, so that the eyes stung and watered with it 
and it was hard to breathe. "Filthy, smoky holes," 
Williams called them, but the discomfort and the 
filth never kept him from going there. 

When he came back to the town he would again 
take up his disputes with the Puritans, and wrote long 
letters to protest against their conduct, or to explain 
his own. The Puritans grew more and more dis- 
satisfied with him and his opinions.' He disagreed 
with them in almost all their ideas about the church 
and government; and when he disagreed with them 
he never hesitated to tell them so, nor to tell others, 
either. The disputes between them grew into quar- 
rels, and the quarrels became more bitter every day.^ 

Moreover, the Puritan rulers in Boston allowed the 
magistrates there to punish people not only for break- 
ing the laws about lying and stealing, and so on; 
they also had the right to punish people for not going 
to church, or for breaking the Sabbath day, or for not 



ROGER WILLIAMS FOUNDED A TOWN 25 

believing as the Puritan ministers taught them. This 
seemed to WiUiams very wrong. He did not think 
the magistrates should have any such power as that. 

Before long the General Court at Boston ordered the 
Salem church to dismiss him, and he went to live 
at Plymouth for a time. Later on, however, he 
again returned to Salem. The most of his friends 
were there, and those who believed in his teachings 
and had become his followers. He now separated 
himself from the church entirely. He would not 
even pray with his wife because she still went to 
church and was a member of it. 

It seemed to the Puritans that there would never 
be any peace in the colony as long as Roger Wil- 
liams was there. He did nothing, so it seemed to 
them, but disturb people and stir them up against 
the rulers. They decided that he must leave and go 
elsewhere, where, they did not care; back to England, 
or into the wilderness, or perhaps down to the 
Dutch colony of New Netherland, only he must 
go. An order to leave the New England colonies 
within six weeks was sent him in October of the 
year 1635.' 

But at the time this order reached Roger Williams 
he was ill, too ill to travel. On this account the 
General Court of Boston gave him permission to 
stay in Salem until the following spring, but it 
forbade him, during that time, to preach, or to 
speak to the people in any public place. But the 
General Court did not forbid him to talk with his 
friends at home. 

People began to gather about him in his house, 
sometimes as many as a dozen at a time, to hear him 
talk. Many of these became his followers. 



26 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

It was not long, however, before the news of this 
came to the ears of the Puritan rulers. They were 
told how Williams was still teaching his dangerous 
ideas to the people. They began to regret bitterly 
that they had allowed him to remain in Salem. They 
also began to lay plans as to how they could get rid 
of him without waiting until spring. 

A vessel was sailing for England early in January, 
and it was secretly arranged by the General Court 
that Williams should be put aboard this vessel and 
sent back to England. If only they could once get 
him out of the colony the rulers would see to it 
that he never set foot within their boundaries again. 

It was only three days before the ship was to sail 
that Williams learned of the plot against him. At 
once, and without waiting an hour, he gathered 
together some of his belongings, and prepared to set 
out into the wilderness to seek a refuge there. 

It was the dead of winter and bitterly cold. A 
heavy snow lay on the ground. Only one compan- 
ion went with him. This was his faithful servant, 
Thomas Angell; Mistress Williams could not have 
left her children, nor could she have borne the hard- 
ships and exposure of her husband's long wanderings. 

For fourteen weeks Williams and Angell wandered 
from place to place. Sometimes they journeyed on 
foot, breaking their way through the snowdrifts; 
sometimes they paddled along the shore in canoes.^ 
Their only shelter was in the wigwams of the 
savages. They were not only half frozen, but 
almost starved as well. The streams were frozen 
and game was scarce. Williams afterward spoke of 
how, through those fourteen weeks of suffering, he 
had not known "what bread or bed did mean," 



ROGER WILLIAMS FOUNDED A TOWN 27 

Toward spring things grew somewhat better. It 
was not so bitterly cold, and it seemed more possible 
to get food. 

Williams knew that it would not be safe for him to 
try to return to Massachusetts. He determined to 
make a home for himself in the wilderness, where there 
would be none to trouble him and where he could 
have his wife and children with him. It would be no 
cross to him to have none but Indians around him. 
He wrote that his soul's desire was "to do the na- 
tives good," and "not to be troubled with English 
company." 

The place where he at last decided to build a 
house was a piece of ground on the east side of the 
Seekonk River, probably somewhere in the present 
town of Rehoboth. 

Several of his friends came out to join him there, 
though not, as he declared, because of any urging 
from him. "Out of pity," he wrote, "I gave leave 
to Mr. Harris, then poor and destitute, to come along 
in my company, I consented to John Smith, miller 
at Dorchester (banished also), to go with me 
. . . to a poor young fellow, Francis Wicks, as 
also to a lad of Richard Waterman's." Besides the 
four he named, Joshua Verrin came also. 

It was now April. The streams were running 
clear. The ground was softening. Hopefully this 
Uttle band of pioneers set about getting lumber for 
their homes, laying out gardens, and breaking ground 
for crops. No other white men were within sound or 
reach. 

All about them were the Indians, but they were so 
friendly that the settlers had no fear of them. There 
seemed, indeed, nothing to interfere with the success 



28 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

of the new settlement. Already Williams was plan- 
ning for the time when he could send for his wife and 
children to come out and join him. 

But suddenly, in the midst of all the planning and 
building, a letter was brought to Williams. It came 
from Governor Winslow at Plymouth, and it was 
written to tell Williams that the place he had chosen 
for a settlement was within the borders of the Plym- 
outh Colony. 

The colony owned all the land on the east side of 
the river, and Winslow regretfully wrote that Wil- 
liams and his friends would not be allowed to sta}' 
there. 

This was heavy news for the settlers. Already 
their houses were partly built. The ground was 
broken and a part of their seed had been sown. But 
hard as it was to leave this spot they had chosen, they 
did not dare to disobey the orders of the Governor. 
The very day the letter came they began to make 
their preparations to leave. Provisions were gath- 
ered together, axes and tools were brought from the 
houses where they had been in use, clothes and bed- 
ding were rolled up and fastened in bundles. 

It would be necessary to cross the river before 
they could get beyond the borders of the Plymouth 
Colony. They had only one canoe, and when it was 
loaded, and they had started out on the river in it, 
they were in great danger of being swamped. Slowly 
and carefully they paddled out into the stream and 
toward the opposite shore. At the point they were 
making for a great rock, afterward called "Slate 
Rock," overhung the water. Suddenly upon this 
rock, dark against the sky, appeared the figures of 
several Indians. For a few moments they stood 



ROGER WILLIAMS FOUNDED A TOWN 29 

watching with interest the loaded canoe. Then 
across the water they called a friendly greeting: 
"What Cheer, Netop?" 

Williams answered them with like friendliness, and, 
as the canoe drew in toward shore, the natives came 
down to meet him. Williams began to talk to them 
in the Indian language, and presently he learned that 
aU this land on the west side of the river belonged 
to Canonicus and his tribe. No white man had any 
right to any part of it. This was good news for Wil- 
liams, for Canonicus was still his close and trusted 
friend, and would grudge him nothing. 

Cheered by the knowledge they had gained, the 
white men again pushed their canoe out into the 
stream and took up their journey. As they went 
they watched the shore for a promising spot to land. 

They paddled around the headlands now known 
as India and Fox Points, and into the Mooshassock 
River. Here they came upon a place where three 
streams met. 

The land rose from the water in a gentle slope, and 
a spring, crystal clear, bubbled up not far from the 
shore. It would scarcely have been possible to find 
a better place for a settlement. 

They landed, and found a number of Indians had 
already encamped there, and were cooking their 
evening meal. This spot was indeed quite close to 
the Pequot Path, which was the principal highwa}' 
for the Indians when they journeyed around Nar- 
ragansett Bay, and on toward the south. 

The natives welcomed the white men among them, 
and gave them a share of the boiled bass and succo- 
tash they had just prepared. These Indians as- 
sured the white men that if they chose to settle here 



30 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

they might do so in peace. None would hinder 
them and none would grudge them the land, least 
of all Wilhams's good friend Canonicus. "It is 
God's good providence that has brought us safely to 
this spot," cried Williams with deep thankfulness, 
and he determined to make here a settlement that 
should be a place of refuge for all who were perse- 
cuted or "distressed for conscience sake" as he had 
been. And it was in remembrance of God's great 
mercies to him that he gave to his first settlement in 
Rhode Island the name of Providence. 




What Cheer, Netop 



NOTES 

1. Two Indian words may perhaps serve to show how difficult was the 
task that WilUams undertook. " Nooroomantammoonkanunonnash " 
means "our loves," and "Kummogkodonattoottummooetiteaongan- 
nunnonash" means "our question." 

2. Williams had already drawn down on himself the disapprobation of 
the Boston church, and the General Court at Boston remonstrated with 
the church of Salem for admitting him to the ministry there. 

3. The principal causes of ofTence that WiUiams gave to the Puritan 
rulers seem to have been : 

First. "His violent and tumultuous carriage against the patent,'' 
meaning the charter given them by the king. 

Seco>td. For his opinion that "a magistrate ought not to tender an 
oath to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with 
a wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of 
God in vain." 

Third. "The heavy and turbulent spirit" of his letters to the Puritan 
rulers. 

Fourth. His separation of himself from all the churches in the country. 

4. This order read, " Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of 
the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged new and dangerous 
opinions against the authority of magistrates; has also writ letters of 
defamation, both of magistrates and churches here, and that before any 
conviction, and yet maintained the same without any retraction; it is 
therefore ordered that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this ju- 
risdiction within six weeks now next ensuing, which, if he neglect to per- 
form, it shall be lawful for the Governor and two of the magistrates to 
send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to retiu-n any more 
without license from the Court." 

5. Mr. Strauss, in his book on Roger Williams, writes: "According to 
the weight of authority . . . when WiUiams left Salem he made his 
way from there by sea, coasting probably from place to place during the 
'fourteen weeks,' . . . and holding intercourse with the native 
tribes." 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

The Red Men And The 

White Made War 

Together 




It Was a Bitter Thing for Pliilip to Have to Do 

OF ALL the Indian wars in New England, 
King Philip's War was the bloodiest and 
most cruel. 

King PhiHp^ was the king of the Wampanoag 
Indians. His father, Massasoit, had been one of the 
greatest of all the Indian sachems. He and his tribe 
had owned all the land where Bristol now stands, and 
from there north, around Mount Hope Bay, and 
south as far as Sakonnet. 

But before Massasoit died, and Philip became 
chief, much of this land had passed into the possession 
of the white men. They had bought it from the 
Indians for a few coats, or tools, or firearms, or 
strings of wampum. They had divided it into 
fields, and fenced it about, and built towns. The In- 
dians who had once fished in its streams, and hunted 
in its woods, no longer had any right to it. They 
were being driven out by the white men. Not only 
their land, but their former liberty, too, was being 
taken from them, for the English made laws, and the 
Indians who broke them were punished. 

When King Philip looked about him and saw all 
this, his heart grew bitter within him. He longed 
to bring back power and freedom to^ his tribe, and 
to drive the white men from the land they had taken. 

35 



36 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

But one tribe alone could never do this. The Eng- 
lish were very powerful. They had firearms and 
ammunition. Many native tribes must band to- 
gether before they would be strong enough to war 
against the white men. 

And so Philip began secretly to send out his 
messengers to other tribes to tell them of their wrongs 
and of all that the English had done to them, and to 
urge them to join with his people and rise against 
the white men. 

But secretly as Philip worked, some news of what 
he was doing leaked out and became known among 
the colonists. The rumors caused the English 
great anxiety, for of all the dangers of this wild land 
none was so feared as an uprising of the Indians, and 
a massacre. 

Many of the more timid of the English, and those 
who lived in lonely settlements, left their houses and 
took refuge in the towns or in fortified places. Set- 
tlers armed themselves and took precautions to 
guard their women and their children. Even when 
they went to church they carried their loaded fire- 
arms with them. 

The anxiety grew so great that Governor Prince 
of Plymouth, and some of the Massachusetts rulers, 
decided to hold a meeting in the meeting-house in 
Taunton. Philip was ordered to appear before this 
meeting and answer the charges that had been made 
against him — charges that he was arming his war- 
riors, and that he was stirring up other Indians to 
rise against the white men. 

Philip was very unwilling to obey this summons. 
He sent back a proud answer. "The Governor of 
Massachusetts is only a subject," he said. "I am a 



RED MEN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 37 

king. I will not treat unless my brother king, 
Charles of England, is here." 

Another and more threatening order was sent, and 
this time Phihp dared not disobey. He went to 
Taunton, but he took with him seventy of his bravest 
warriors, and all were armed. King Philip himself 
was very magnificent. Over his clothes he wore a 
scarlet blanket. A wonderful belt of wampum was 
wound about him. It was nine inches wide, and 
wrought with strange figures of birds and beasts and 
flowers, and it was fringed with red hair. Around 
his neck was another band of wampum, with a star 
hanging from it. His headpiece was also of wampum; 
it was trimmed with feathers, and so long it hung far 
down his back. 

WTien he reached Taunton and found that the 
meeting was to be held in a building, and that he was 
expected to go in and talk with the English shut in by 
walls, he at first refused. Only after it had been ar- 
ranged that the white men should all keep on one 
side of the meeting-house, and the Indians on the 
other, would he enter the building. 

The Puritan rulers were stern, keen men. Philip, 
too, was keen; but when he found how much the 
white men knew about his plotting — that they even 
knew he had planned to attack Taunton — he could 
hardly tell how to answer them. He was afraid to 
confess that all they said of him was true, and yet he 
dared not quite deny it, either. 

In the end the Governor and commissioners re- 
fused to allow Philip to lea\^e the tow^n until he had 
signed a treaty of peace with them. This was a hard 
thing for Philip to have to do, for by this treaty it was 
agreed that all his warriors should hand over their 



38 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

arms to the white men. This meant that all his 
plans for a war were destroyed, for a time at least. 
Without arms his warriors could do nothing, and it 
would be a long time before they could again collect 
enough guns and ammunition to fight the English. 

When the Wampanoags returned to Mount Hope 
their hearts were black with rage. They once more 
began their secret plotting and planning, but the 
white men were now watchful and fearful. It was 
hard for the natives to get hold of any sort of weap- 
ons. Few or none among the white traders would 
now sell firearms to an Indian. 

Colonel Benjamin Church was an officer well 
known throughout New England. He was well 
known not only to the white men, but to the Indians 
as well. The natives felt a great respect for him be- 
cause he understood their ways, and was not afraid 
to venture among them. 

It was a custom among the Indians to hold a 
dance before they decided any matter that was of 
great importance. 

Early in the summer of 1675 Awashonks, the 
squaw sachem (that is the queen) of the Sogkonate 
Indians, sent word to Church that she was holding a 
dance, and wished him to come to it. 

Colonel Church was more than eager to go. He 
hoped that if he went to the dance he might learn 
something of what the Indians intended toward the 
white men. He started out on horseback the very 
day the message reached him, taking with him only 
a young lad who understood the Indian language. 

When they reached the Sogkonate's country they 
found the dance had already begun. Awashonks 
herself, all "in a foaming sweat," was leading it. 



RED MExN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 39 

As soon as she saw Church, she left the dance and 
seated herself to talk to him, while her chief men 
gathered about her. 

Awashonks told the colonel that Philip had sent 
messengers to her to tell her the English were gath- 
ering together a great army, and intended to come 
out into the Indian country and attack them. 
Philip had urged her to join with his tribe in a war 
against the white men, and she wished to know what 
Colonel Church thought about it. 

Colonel Church told her that he had just come 
from Plymouth; that no army was gathering there, 
and as far as he knew there was no talk of a war. 
He then asked to see the messengers that Philip 
had sent. 

Awashonks called them, and the Mount Hope men 
came forward. There were six of them. They 
were fierce and cruel-looking Indians. Their faces 
were painted with bright colors, and their hair 
trimmed up in a comb shape. On their backs were 
powder-horns and shot-bags. 

Church stepped forward and felt the bags, and 
found they were full of bullets. "Whsit are these 
for?" he asked. 

"To shoot pigeons," answered the braves scorn- 
fully. 

Colonel Church then told the messengers they 
were bloody wretches, who thirsted after the lives 
of their English neighbors, and he advised Awa- 
shonks to have them killed, and shelter herself with 
the English. 

When the Wampanoags heard this they were filled 
with fury, and would have killed Church if they 
could, but Awashonks' men prevented them. The 



40 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

colonel then again urged her to do nothing against 
the English. He said that if she took part in any 
war against them she and her tribe would surely be 
destroyed, but if she kept the peace the white men 
would see that no harm came to her. 

Awashonks thanked him for his advice, and told 
him she would think it over, and then she sent him 
home with two of her men to protect him on the way. 
And in fact she never did join with Philip. 

Church soon afterward talked with Peter Num- 
mit, who was the husband of the queen of the 
Pocassets, and Peter told him that there would cer- 
tainly be a war. Philip had held a great war dance 
the week before, and Indians from many different 
tribes had come to it. 

This news added to the alarm of the English. Com- 
panies were formed and officers appointed. Many 
places were fortified and supplied with arms and 
ammunition. Roger Williams, now an old man, was 
asked to take command of a company of Providence 
militia. This he did, and by his advice several of the 
buildings were fortified. 

Again Philip was sent for to come to Plymouth and 
answer to the charges against him. This time he 
came willingly enough, but the rulers could prove 
nothing against him, and were obliged to allow him to 
return to Mount Hope. 

The great anxiety was lest the Narragansetts,^ 
too, should join with Philip's forces, for the Narra- 
gansetts were a great and powerful tribe. As long 
as they could be kept quiet the danger was not so 
desperate, but if they, too, started on the warpath it 
might end in a massacre of all the English. 

In June the Governor and Assistants at Boston de- 



RED MEN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 41 

termined to send commissioners to the Narragan- 
setts to urge them to keep peace. Williams was 
asked to go with them and use his influence with the 
Indians. He was quite willing to go, but he had 
small hope of doing any good. He was now old 
and poor. He could no longer carry with him gifts 
to win the Indians' good-will. His wise friend Ca- 
nonicus was dead, and the young warriors cared little 
for his advice. 

When he reached their village he was weU received. 
The warriors sat with him and listened with grave 
attention to all he had to say; they even made him 
many good promises, but Wilhams felt that their 
fair words and promises meant little. They would 
break them as soon as it suited them, and he re- 
turned home heavy-hearted and full of anxious fears. 

It was on Sunday, the 24th of June, 1675, that the 
first shots of the war were fired, and they were fired 
by the white settlers and not the Indians. The first 
man killed was a Wampanoag. 

Philip's wise men had told him that whichever 
side shed the first blood would be defeated.^ Philip 
believed this, and until that June Sunday he would 
not aUow any one of his warriors to kill man, wo- 
man, or child of the English. He allowed them to 
burn and plunder as they chose, but not until an 
Indian had first been killed might they begin their 
massacre. 

On that June day all was peaceful and sunny and 
quiet in the little settlement of Swansea. The set- 
tlers had gone to church, taking their wives and 
children with them. The houses lay deserted. In the 
barnyards the chickens scratched and clucked; the 
cows were peacefully chewing the cud, and the horses 



42 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

stood resting and flicking away flies. Over every- 
thing lay the sunny Sabbath day silence. 

Suddenly, and as silently as shadows, a band of 
Indians appeared before one of the houses. They 
had discovered that it was unprotected, and had 
come to burn and destroy. They set fire to the 
buildings, and then began to kill the animals. They 
were in the midst of this work when the settlers re- 
lumed. The people of the village had seen the 
smoke in the distance as they came from church. 
They came rushing home, full of rage and horror, 
and tried to drive the Indians away. The Indians 
resisted, and in the struggle that followed one of 
them was shot. The others fled, but they were 
now free to take revenge in any way they chose, 
for the first blood of the war had been shed, and it 
was the English who had shed it. 

The next day the Indians returned to Swansea 
and killed several settlers. Almost at once other 
towns and settlements were attacked. Brookfield 
in Massachusetts was burned. Hadley, Deerfield, 
Xorthfield, Springfield, all were attacked. Many of 
the inhabitants fled to Newport or Portsmouth for 
shelter The people of Warwick also sought refuge 
on the island, leaving their town deserted. Every- 
where was fear, panic, and horror. 

Four days after the massacre of Swansea, troops 
under the command of Major Savage marched to 
Mount Hope. They hoped to find Philip there, but 
he and all his men had disappeared. The soldiers 
found only the ashes of their campfires, and the 
heads and hands of the murdered white men stuck 
on poles. 

Colonel Church afterward tracked the Mount 



RED MEN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 43 

Hope sachem to Pocasset, but once again Philip 
escaped, this time into Massachusetts. It seemed, 
indeed, almost impossible ever to know where the 
Indians were, or which place would be the next one 
to suffer. Suddenly they would gather, a settlement 
would be attacked, and then, before troops could 
arrive, the savages would disappear again as suddenly 
and mysteriously as they had come. Only now and 
then were they overtaken and forced into an open 
fight. 

The white men, on their side, destroyed a number 
of Indian villages. They set fire to the wigwams, 
and those of the Indians who escaped from the flames 
were killed by the white men's knives or bullets. The 
English spared none of them, neither old nor young, 
women nor children, nor the helpless babies. Some 
of the younger and stronger Indians, however, wTre 
saved alive and sold as slaves. 

In November the English openly declared war 
against the Indians, and a reward was offered for 
Philip, alive or dead. But no one knew what had 
become of him. Some said he had taken refuge in 
Canada for the winter; some that he had gone to 
New Netherland (New York); others believed the 
Narragansetts were sheltering him in their fort in the 
Great Swamp. 

This swamp was a lonely and dismal place near 
the centre of what is now South Kingstown. The 
trees there grew so thickly that their branches made 
it dark in the swamp even at noonday. The ground 
was so soft and treacherous it was impossible to 
cross it except by a secret path of logs that the Indi- 
ans had made. 

In the middle of this swamp was a piece of solid 



44 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

ground, and upon this the Indians had built their fort. 
The only way to get to it was by the path of logs. 

The fort covered three or four acres of ground, and 
was made of logs and brushwood.^ One place in the 
wall at the northeast corner was still unfinished, and 
across this the Indians laid a log for protection. In- 
side the fort was a village of about five hundred 
wig^vams and some roughly built houses. 

Here the Narragansetts had stored all the provi- 
sions the}' had gathered for the winter, the grain, 
the dried meat and fish and acorns that were to 
last them through the long, frozen months, and were 
all they would have to live on. 

When the fighting first began the Wampanoags 
sent many of their women and children to the Nar- 
ragansetts for shelter. It was suspected by the Eng- 
lish that the Narragansetts were giving shelter and 
help to Wampanoag warriors as well, though they 
could not prove it. 

Canonchet was at this time the chief of the Nar- 
ragansetts, 

In November Governor Winslow of Plymouth 
sent a message to Canonchet ordering him to give 
up all the Wampanoags who had taken shelter with 
him. This he must do to prove to the white men 
that he was keeping faith and not dealing treacher- 
ously with them. Not long before, Canonchet and 
his principal men had signed a treaty of peace with 
the English. He knew the power of the white men, 
and he feared it, but still he would not give up those 
who had come to him for refuge. 

He sent back to Governor Winslow a bold and 
haughty answer. "Not a Wampanoag nor the nail of 
a Wampanoag" should be given up to the EngHsh. 



RED MEN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 45 

The Puritan rulers had for some time suspected 
that the Narragansetts were not keeping to their 
treaty of peace. They suspected that they were 
aiding the Wampanoags in many ways: even that 
some of the Narragansett warriors had fought with 
PhiHp's men. When this bold answer was received 
the rulers determined to send troops into Rhode 
Island and attack Canonchet in his fort. 

A large force of soldiers and militia was gathered 
together under the command of Governor Winslow. 
There were 550 of the Massachusetts troops, 315 
from Connecticut, and 158 from Plymouth. Besides 
these there were several Rhode Island sailors who had 
volunteered, and about 120 friendly Indians. 

Rhode Island, as a colony, would gladly have sent 
her share of the troops, but this the Puritan leaders 
would not allow. Many Jews and Quakers, as well 
as others who differed from the Puritans, had been 
allowed to settle in Rhode Island. Here they lived 
in peace, worshipping God as they pleased. Wil- 
liams himself did not belong to any church. The 
Puritans called Rhode Island a colony of heretics, 
and they would not allow heretics to be their com- 
panions, even in a war against the savages. 

The troops that were to attack the fort gathered 
in the town of Wickford, about fifteen miles from 
the Great Swamp. It was near midnight of the 
19th of December when they set out. The weather 
that winter was bitterly cold. Everything was 
frozen hard. Even the Great Swamp itself was 
turned to solid ground. A heavy snowstorm was 
raging. The soldiers were almost blinded by the 
flakes. Their hands grew so numb they could 
hardly hold their guns. Often they stumbled and 



40 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

almost fell in the drifts that grew deeper every 
hour. 

It was not until one o'clock of the next day that 
they reached the edge of the swamp. By that time 
they were almost exhausted, and a halt was called. 

An Indian deserter from the fort had been cap- 
tured near the swamp, and from him General Winslow 
learned the plan of the fort, and also the fact that 
there was an opening at the northeast corner. It was 
at that point he planned to make his attack, but he 
would give his troops time to rest before going farther. 

The soldiers stood there at rest, trying to warm 
their numbed fingers, and staring curiously about 
them. 

Suddenly from behind trees and fallen logs a 
volley of bullets and arrows was poured into their 
midst. Many a poor fellow dropped where he stood, 
staining the snow with his blood. A band of Indians 
had been hidden in this part of the wood and had 
been waiting to attack the English in case they tried 
to enter here. 

As the men heard the cries and groans of their 
wounded comrades all weariness was forgotten. 
They were filled with fury, and seizing their weapons 
they charged into the forest. The Indians fled be- 
fore them, but the soldiers followed close after them 
up to the very walls of the fort, firing as they ran. 
They had scarcely reached the fort, however, when 
the Indians within poured out such a fierce fire of 
shots that the troops fell on their faces in the snow, 
and lay there until they could crawl back to the 
shelter of the trees. 

But they were not discouraged. Fresh troops 
came up to reinforce them, and a second and more 



RED MEN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 47 

desperate attack was made. It carried them under 
and over the log that blocked the gap, and mto the 
fort. 

Here the fight raged even more fiercely. Many of 
the Indians took shelter in the log houses, and fired 
from there. The troops were driven back toward the 
waU, and the fierce war-whoops of the Indians rose 
in triumph. But suddenly their whoops were 
changed to cries of dismay. The Connecticut troops 
had circled the fort and entered from the other side 
where it was unprotected. Now they were firing 
on the savages from the rear. 

The Indians were ill-prepared for this fresh attack. 
They had already used almost aU of their bullets 
and powder. Even their arrows were almost gone. 
Many of them now tried to escape out of the fort into 
the forest, but they were shot down by the white 
men as they ran, or knocked in the head by the troops 
outside. The dusk was falling, but through the 
twilight still sounded the fierce cries of those who 
fought, volleys of shot, and the groans of the 
wounded. 

Suddenly the air was reddened by a strange glow. 
It wavered and sank, and then blazed up brighter. 
Some one had set fire to the wigwams. The wind 
was blowing a gale, and the flames leaped from one 
wigwam to another. The log houses, too, caught 
fire. Soon the whole village was blazing. Dark 
figures burst out through the burning walls of the 
dwellings and ran across the open. Many of them 
were squaws carrying babies in their arms, or drag- 
ging little children by the hands. They could be 
clearly seen against the snow, and the English shot 
them down as they ran. No mercy was shown to 



48 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

any one. A number of wounded men were still in 
the wigwams, and could not escape, and their cries 
rose above the roaring of the flames. 

For a time the whole swamp seemed filled with 
horror. Then as the flames slowly died down the 
volleys of shot, too, died out. Those of the Indians 
who had not been killed or taken prisoners had 
escaped into the forest. Silence fell over the fort, 
broken only by the commands of the officers, a low 
word among the men, or the moaning of the wounded. 

The English had won. The victory was theirs, 
but they had paid a heavy price for it. Many of 
their officers and men lay dead in the snow. Still 
more were desperately wounded. Those who were 
unhurt were faint and exhausted by the march and 
the fighting. In spite of their condition, however, 
the officers determined to return at once to Wick- 
ford. They were afraid to stay in the fort. They did 
not know what fresh bands of savages might be. 
gathering about them in the darkness. They had no 
food for their men, either. The provisions belonging 
to the Indians, and which they might have used, had 
been burned in the wigwams. 

That journey back to their camp was a terrible 
one for the troops. More men died on the way 
back, it was reckoned, than had been killed at the 
fort.^ 

After the white men had left the swamp the Indi- 
ans who were still alive crept back to the smoulder- 
ing ruins of their village. Here they tried to find a 
little food and warmth. As Canonchet looked about 
him and saw how few were left, his heart was filled 
with grief and rage. Pie now cared for nothing but 
revenge. 



RED MEN AND THE WHITE MADE WAR 49 

That winter many of his people died of starvation, 
but when the spring came the remnant started on the 
warpath. A few Wampanoags joined them, but 
their tribe, too, was scattered. Many settlements 
and towns were attacked by these remaining warri- 
ors, however. Once more houses were burned and 
people massacred. 

In March a band of soldiers under Captain Michael 
Pierce set out for Study Hill, in Cumberland. They 
had learned that Canonchet and his men had a camp 
there, and they hoped to surprise them and force them 
to surrender. The soldiers were themselves, how- 
ever, surprised in a ravine and massacred. Not 
more than two or three of them escaped alive. 

The Narragansetts were filled with triumph over 
this massacre. Soon afterward they attacked the 
town of Rehoboth, and Providence itself was at- 
tacked, fifty-four houses burned, and many people 
killed. 

It is said that when Williams heard the Indians 
were coming to Providence he went to meet them 
alone and unarmed, and urged and entreated them 
to spare the town. He warned them of the punish- 
ment that would surely come to them if they carried 
out their plans. 

But the Indians would not listen to him. "Let 
the English come," they said; "we wiU meet them." 
Then they added, "But you. Brother Williams, you 
are a good man. You have been kind to us many 
years. Not a hair of your head shall be touched." 

And this promise was kept. In the midst of the 
destruction that followed no harm came to Williams 
or to any one belonging to him. 

But this attack on Providence was the last of 



50 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Canonchet's victories. Soon after he was taken 
prisoner, and on April 3, 1676, he was shot. He had 
been offered his hfe if he would promise to make his 
people submit to the Enghsh, but this he refused to 
do. He was not afraid to die. He said: "I like 
it well; I shall die before my heart is soft, or I have 
said anything unworthy of myself." 

Phihp, too, no longer cared to live. His tribe 
was scattered. His wife and children had been 
taken prisoners and sold as slaves. He was homeless 
and friendless. Four months after the death of 
Canonchethe, too, was shot as he was trying to escape 
from a swamp where he had taken shelter. 

The death of these two great sachems ended the 
war between the white men and the red. But though 
the war was over, New England was full of grief and 
mourning. Many of its best and bravest men had 
been killed. Houses had been burned and towns 
destroyed. The colonies were in debt for money 
they had borrowed to pay their troops and to build 
forts. 

It was many a long year before the people ceased 
to shudder when they remembered the horrors of 
King Philip's War. 




The Indians Resisted, and in the Struggle That Followed One of Them Was Shot 



NOTES 

1. Philip's Indian name was Metacom. He was the son of Massasoit, 
the greatest of the Wampanoag sachems. 

2. The Narragansetts and the Wampanoags were the two most powerful 
tribes of all the New England Indians. At one time the Pequots had 
ranked with the Wampanoags in fierceness and warlike qualities, but 
they had been almost destroyed and wiped out by the English some 
years before. 

3. This story has been given by so many authorities that it is here 
stated as a fact rather than a legend. 

4. Accounts differ as to how this wall was made. .According to some 
authors it was built of stones, with a clay wall inside of that, and heavy 
palisades of logs without. Others say that it consisted of nothing but 
logs and piles of brushwood; that the Indians would have had to bring 
the stones and clay from a long distance, and that it is very unlikely that 
they did this. 

5. Mr. W. A. Greene, in liis article, " The Great Battle of the Narragan- 
setts," states that only eight of the English were killed in the battle. 




Roger Williams Asking the Committee for the Patent 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

Rhode Island Gained 

Her Patent 



The People of Providence Came Out in Fourteen Canoes 

IT WAS late in the spring when Williams and his 
companions broke ground for their second settle- 
ment. Much precious time had already been 
wasted at Seekonk. It was necessary to get their 
seed into the ground without delay if they expected 
it to yield them good crops that year. 

The settlers had brought little with them except 
clothing, tools, and a few cooking utensils. They 
were obliged not only to plant seeds and build houses 
for themselves, but they had to make their furniture 
as well. The building itself was a hard and laborious 
matter. The houses were made of logs which the set- 
tlers had to cut, haul, and raise into place. The 
chimneys and fireplaces were of unbroken stones fitted 
together ; the cracks between these were filled in with 
clay. The settlers had no glass for their windows; 
they had no nails. All the furniture was fastened 
together with wooden pegs. Rough shutters were 
closed over the windows when it stormed. 

They had brought few provisions with them, and 
depended largely on their hunting and fishing for 
food. Everything they had to eat was cooked over 
open fires, either boiled in pots, or stuck on sharp 
sticks and roasted before the flames. The Indians 
who traveUed along the Great Bay Path^ often 
stopped at the settlement. The most of those who 

55 



56 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

stopped were Narragansetts and seemed very friendly. 
They watched the work of the white men with some 
curiosity, but they did not interfere. 

No white men had ever ventured so far out into 
their country before except one, a Mr. WiUiam Black- 
stone. He had built a house not far from where 
Williams and his companions settled. Blackstone 
had been a minister in Boston, but suddenly, for 
what reason no one knew, he had given up the min- 
istry and had come out here into the wUdemess to 
live. He had brought no one with him but his wife. 
He had built himself a house, laid out fields, and 
planted an apple orchard. He called his place Study 
Hill. It was only six miles from Providence, and 
later on, when the little settlement had grown to be a 
town, every one in it learned to know Blackstone. 
He used to ride over from Study Hill on a great white 
bull that he had trained to carry him as though it 
were a horse. He would preach to the young men 
and boys of Providence, and sometimes he would 
bring them presents of apples — the great juicy 
"yellow sweetings" that grew in his orchard. These 
apples were a great curiosity to the boys of that time, 
for they had never seen an apple until Mr. Black- 
stone brought the fruit into the town. As soon as 
Williams had a home for his wife and children they 
came to join him.- Mistress Williams was obliged 
to leave some of their household goods and posses- 
sions behind her in Salem. This distressed Williams 
greatly. He afterward tried to have the things sent 
out to Providence, but he was not able to arrange it. 
The loss of these things was a serious matter to him, 
for he was very poor, so poor indeed that he was 
scarcely able to provide the necessary food and 



RHODE ISLAND GAINED HER PATENT 57 

clothing for himself and his family. He wrote to a 
friend that he spent his time both day and night 
''at the hoe and at the oar for bread," and he spoke 
with thankfulness of a piece of gold that Governor 
Winslow put into Mistress Williams's hand one time 
when he was visiting in Providence. The Indian 
chiefs Canonicus and Miantonomo had given to 
W^iUiams about four square miles of land in and about 
Providence. If he had chosen to sell parts of this 
to the settlers who came out to join him, he might 
have made a great deal of money, but this he would 
not do. Instead, he gave it away, dividing it about 
equally with the first twelve men who joined him. 
Each of these men was given a "home lot" the size 
of his own and sLx acres of land for fields and pas- 
turing cattle. The "home lots " faced on the " towne 
street" of the settlement. This "towne street" is 
now North and South Main streets. It extended as 
far eastward as the present Hope Street. Williams 
named his own pasturage "What Cheer" in memory 
of the greeting called to him from Slate Rock by the 
friendly Indians. Canonicus was still his close 
friend, and WUliams said that not for thousands 
of pounds would that great sachem have sold the 
land to any other Englishman; but to Williams he 
gave it because of the great love and friendship be- 
tween them. In a deed, made in March, 1638, 
Canonicus declared that the land was freely given to 
Williams "in consideration of the many kindnesses 
and services he hath continually done for us." 

Williams had said he would make of Providence a 
refuge "for all who were distressed for conscience 
sake" or who wanted "soul liberty." This promise 
was so well kept that before long many who wanted 



5S ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

religious liberty came out from Plymouth and Massa- 
chusetts to join him. It was a great offence to the 
Puritans that he should give a shelter to all of these 
and allow them to worship God in any way the}' 
pleased. The rulers of Massachusetts and Plym- 
outh would gladly have interfered if they could, 
but Providence was beyond their boundaries. 

Their laws and regulations could not reach out into 
the wilderness to this new settlement. Some of the 
settlers who came to Providence for religious freedom 
felt they ran a great risk in doing so. The risk the)' 
feared was not from any Puritan rulers, but from 
the savages. They could not put the trust in the 
Indians that Williams seemed to have. They were 
farther out in the wilderness than any settlers had 
ever ventured before, and in case of an Indian war 
Providence would be more open to an attack than 
almost any other town. 

In the summer of 1636 news was brought to Provi- 
dence that filled these more timid settlers with anx- 
ious fears. A war had broken out between the fierce 
and savage Pequots and the English. The war 
began with the murder of John Oldham. John 
Oldham was a Boston man. He and several com- 
panions had been in a sloop just off Block Island. 
The Indians had attacked the sloop, killed John 
Oldham, and carried his companions off with them 
into the wilderness. What the savages had done 
with them, whether they had killed them or were 
keeping them prisoners, no one knew. Nothing was 
ever heard of them again. 

Many massacres followed this attack upon the 
sloop. All over the colonies houses were burned, 
property destroyed, and prisoners tortured. The 



RHODE ISLAND GAINED HER PATENT 59 

English sent out troops to fight the savages, and 
fortified a number of buildings. Providence took 
no means to protect itself, and yet it was one of the 
towns that suffered no harm : not a house was burned 
nor a settler injured. In October great fears were 
felt lest the Narragansetts might start out on the 
warpath, too. They were a very powerful tribe, and 
if they now took part with the Pequots the war 
might end in a general massacre of all the English. 
Governor Vane, of Boston, wrote to Williams and 
begged him to see the Narragansetts and urge them 
to keep peace with the English. 

It was a wild and stormy day when the Governor's 
letter was brought to WiUiams. The wind was 
howling through the wilderness and whipping the 
waters of the bay into high waves, but without wait- 
ing to make any preparation, hardly even stopping 
to say good-bye to his wife, WiUiams launched his 
canoe and started for the wigwams of the Narragan- 
setts. "The Lord helped me," he wrote, " to put my 
life in my hand . . . and ship myself alone in a 
poor canoe, and to cut through a stormy wind with 
great seas, every minute in hazard of my life, to the 
sachem's house. Three days and nights my business 
forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequots' 
ambassadors, whose hands and arms methought 
reeked with the blood of my countrymen . . . 
and from whom I could but nightly look for their 
bloody knives at my own throat also." In those 
three days and nights that Williams spent in the 
Indian wigw^ams there were long talks and argu- 
ments between him and the sachems. Sometimes 
the Pequots grew so angry that it seemed as though 
they would fall upon him and murder him. But they 



6o ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

feared to do it on account of the Narragansetts, who 
were still his friends. He afterward wrote of how 
"God had wondrously preserved me and given me 
success in my undertaking." For before he re- 
turned home he had induced the Narragansetts to 
break off their treaty with the "bloody Pequots" 
and to promise that they would keep the peace with 
the English. It seemed, indeed, a miracle that he 
was not murdered there among the wigwams. On 
the fourth day Williams returned home, and a short 
time afterward several of the sachems went to Bos- 
ton and there signed a treaty of peace. 

It was a brave and daring service that Williams 
had rendered to the colonies, and he had done it at 
the risk of his life. For a while afterward there was 
some talk in Plymouth and Massachusetts of reward- 
ing him or of allowing him at least to return to the 
colonies; but many of the Puritan leaders were very 
much opposed to this. They still thought him a 
dangerous man. Their gratitude to him soon died 
out and he was still forbidden to set foot inside 
their boundaries. In 1638 another band of settlers 
left Massachusetts. They were under the leadership 
of John Clarke and William Coddington. They 
also wished to found a settlement where they could 
have religious freedom. Their plan was to go dovMi 
to Tong Island and settle there. But on their way 
they stopped at Providence, and Williams urged 
them to settle on the island of Aquidneck^ instead 
of going farther. This they finally decided to do, 
and a little later, through Williams's advice and 
help, they bought the whole of the island from the 
natives. The price paid to Canonicus for the island 
was "forty fathoms of wampum-peage." Besides 



RHODE ISLAND GAINED HER PATENT 6i 

this, the Indians who were living on the island at the 
time were given ten coats and twenty hoes to make 
over all their rights in the land to the white men, and 
the sachem on the island was given five fathoms of 
wampum-peage. 

" Wampum-peage " was the white money of the 
Indians. They had two kinds, white and black. 
The white was made of the eyes of perriwinkle shells 
cut out and smoothed and polished. SLx of these 
were equal to an English penny, and 360 pieces made 
a fathom. The black peage was made of the black 
part of round clam shells, and one piece of it was 
worth two of the white. 

Coddington and Clarke and their followers first 
settled in the northern part of Aquidneck, at Pocas- 
set, now Portsmouth; but the colony grew so fast 
that before long they separated, and a number of 
them moved south and settled Newport. These 
men who settled on the island were, as a rule, very 
well educated, and were more well-to-do than those 
who had gone to Providence. 

Aquidneck was quite as wild and unbroken as 
the mainland. There were many deer in the for- 
ests there, and these were very valuable to the set- 
tlers, both for their skins and as food. The foxes 
were a great nuisance, and the wolves did so much 
damage that men were hired by the day to hunt 
them and kill them. At one time the settlers gath- 
ered the Indians together for a great wolf hunt, hop- 
ing to clear the island of the beasts. But the work 
was poorly done. iVIany wolves escaped. They 
could still be heard howling in the forests at night 
and they still visited the settlements and destroyed 
much live stock. 



62 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Four years after the settlement of Aquidneck a 
man named Samuel Gorton was also banished from 
Massachusetts and Plymouth and came out to seek 
a refuge in Providence. He was a very religious 
man, but of such a curious and difficult nature that 
he seemed to make trouble wherever he went. After 
he came to Providence he made so much disturb- 
ance that Williams almost decided to leave the town 
and settle elsewhere. 

However, Gorton himself made the move. He 
went from Providence to Aquidneck to live, but 
here again he soon found himself in trouble with the 
settlers. He then bought the lands of Shawomet 
(afterward Warwick) from the Indians, and he and his 
followers removed to that place. The price paid 
for the land was one hundred and forty-four fathoms 
of wampum-peage. 

There were now four settlements in what is no\v 
the State of Rhode Island. There was a friendh' 
feeling among these settlements, but each was still 
entirely separate from the others. Each had its own 
government and managed its own affairs in its own 
way. In 1643 the colonies of Massachusetts, Plym- 
outh, Connecticut, and New Haven joined to- 
gether "for mutual help and succor," and took the 
name of "The United Colonies of New England." 
When the news of this union reached Providence it 
caused a great deal of anxiety. It entirely shut out 
the smaller settlements, and seemed to mean that 
in case of any danger the Rhode Island towns would 
be left to take care of themselves. Yet they were 
the ones that would need help the most, because 
they were small and because they could be most 
easily attacked by either land or sea. 



RHODE ISLAND GAINED HER PATENT 63 

Williams wrote to the Governor of Massachusetts 
and asked that Providence and the Aquidneck settle- 
ments might be allowed to join the league. The 
answer was eagerly waited for, but when it came it 
brought only bitter disappointment. The Governor 
and his assistants refused. The excuse they gave 
was that the smaller settlements had no patent; 
neither King nor parliament had given them the 
right to the lands they were holding. It was now 
agreed by the three settlements of Providence, 
Portsmouth, and Newport that they would unite in 
one colony,^ and that WiUiams should go to England 
and try to get a patent or charter for them. Wil- 
liams was quite willing to go and at once began to 
make ready for the voyage. It would have been 
much easier for him if he had been allowed to set sail 
from Boston,' as that was the nearest port, but he 
was forbidden to enter that town. Instead he was 
obliged to journey down to New x\msterdam (now 
New York City) and set sail from there. 

It was a long and tedious journey from America to 
England in those days. Even the fastest vessels 
could not cross from one country to another in less 
than several weeks, and some were months in making 
the journey. In the months that Williams spent 
upon the water he began the book he had thought of 
so long ago — a book about the Indians and their 
language. Day after day, as the ship rose and fell 
on the waves, he was busy with his papers, his ink 
horn, and his quill pen, and by the time he reached 
England he had made out a rough plan of the vol- 
ume. He called it "A Key to the Language of 
America." It not only told about the Indian lan- 
guage, but it related many curious things about their 



64 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

ways and customs and religion as well The book 
was finished and printed while Williams was in 
England and it proved very useful to him. It 
helped to interest people in Rhode Island and made 
it easier for him to get the patent. 

"Parhament, not long before, had appointed a 
committee to take charge of the affairs of the Ameri- 
can colonies. It was from this committee that 
Williams obtained the patent. It was made out 
to the "Providence Plantations," for that was the 
name that was now given to this new colony. 

The patent gave to the inhabitants of Providence 
Plantations the pow6r and the right to govern their 
affairs in any way they chose to agree upon among 
themselves — that is, of course, with due regard to 
right and justice. A letter signed by several mem- 
bers of Parliament was also given to Williams. It 
was addressed to the Governor of Massachusetts. 
In it the Governor and assistants were reproved for 
their bitterness toward Roger Williams, and they 
were urged to live in greater peace and friendship 
with their neighbors. With this letter to protect 
him Williams ventured into Boston harbor and was 
allowed to land and journey on to Providence Plan- 
tations without interference. \\Tien he reached See- 
konk the people of Providence came out to meet 
him in fourteen canoes; shouts of welcome filled the 
air, and he was escorted home in triumph by his 
grateful people. 

But though the four settlements of Rhode Island 
had now united in one colony, and though they had 
their patent, there were still troubles ahead of them. 
It was three years before their government was 
established, and meanwhile Massachusetts and Plym- 



RHODE ISLAND GAINED HER PATENT 65 



outh claimed that a part of the Providence Plan- 
tations land belonged to them. They said parts of it 
had been sold to them by the Indians and that they 
had the first right to it. In 165 1 Williams, with John 
Clarke of Newport, again went to England, to lay the 
latter before the authorities there and have it settled 
by them. Once again, as before, all went well with 
Williams and his mission. Williams was assured that 
all the land claimed by the Providence Plantations 
was theirs, and that no other colony had any right 
to it. With this assurance Williams again returned 
home, leaving Clarke in England as agent for the col- 
ony there. And now Massachusetts and Plymouth 
no longer dared to lay claim to any part of the new 
colony. They still refused to admit it to their union, 
but it stood as their equal, a free and recognized col- 
ony with a patent of its own. Soon it was even 
freer than they, indeed, for in 1663 Charles II gave 
a charter to the "English Colony of Rhode Island 
and Providence Plantations " that allowed it such lib- 
erty as no other colony had ever received before,^ a 
liberty in both civil and religious matters. And this 
charter has stood, ever since, as one of the most re- 
markable any king ever gave to any colony. 



The Ylrs>i 
Baptist 




Meeting 
HoUiSe 



NOTES 

1. The Great Bay Path followed in general what is now the route of 

the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. 

2. Roger Williams's son, Providence, born in the autumn of 1638, is 
said to have been the first male child born in Rhode Island. 

3. The name of the Island of Aquidneck was changed to the Isle of 
Rhodes, or Rhode Island, in 1644. 

4. Warwick was not joined to the Providence Plantations until 164Q. 

5. Besides the inconvenience, Williams's exclusion from Boston was a 
great loss to him from a money standpoint. He wrote to his friend 
Major Mason that his being " debarred from Boston, the chief mart and 
port of New England," had been a cause of great loss to him in the way 
of trade. " God knows," he wrote, " that many thousand pounds cannot 
repay the losses I have sustained." 

6. The Rhode Island Charter is one of the most liberal charters evei 
granted by England to a colony. Not only did it give to the people of 
Rhode Island the right (so long as they made no laws contrary to the 
laws of England) to govern themselves; but it also gave to the inhabi- 
tants complete religious liberty. No person in the colony was to be 
"molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any difference 
in opinion in matters of religion." Even the people of England at that 
time had less religious liberty than this charter gave to the people of 
Rhode Island. 




" Stand Off, You Can't Come on Board! " 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

The People Of Rhode 

Island Destroyed 

The "Gaspee" 




R—R— Rum— Chum— Dum I 

IT WAS March of the year 1772 when the armed 
British schooner Gaspec sailed into Narragansett 
Bay. Her sails were set wide to the light wind, 
and the British colors fluttered at her masthead. 

Many angry and unfriendly eyes watched her 
coming. Not that the people of Rhode Island were 
unfriendly to all, or even many, of the British armed 
vessels. The most of them would have been welcome 
in the bay. But the Gaspee was different from 
these. She had been sent over from England for a 
certain purpose, and a purpose that ill-pleased the 
merchants and shipowners of Rhode Island. 

For over a hundred years the British Parliament 
had been making laws to regulate the American trade 
and to tell the traders what they might or might not 
do; but until the year 1763 England had made al- 
most no effort to have these laws obeyed. The col- 
onists traded as they pleased, and managed their own 
affairs with little interference from the mother 
country. 

But from the year 1763 England began to try to 

71 



72 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

enforce the laws that had been so long neglected, 
and this caused a great deal of trouble and disturb- 
ance in America. The colonists had been left free 
so long that now they were little disposed to submit 
to any regulations made by the mother country. 

One law that the colonists most resented was that 
they must pay a tax, or duty, to England on a great 
many articles they used and that were brought in 
from other countries, such articles as sugar, tea, rum, 
molasses, and so on. 

There were officers whose duty it was to collect 
the taxes on these things. They were called customs 
officers. 

In past years the customs officers had been very 
careless about their duties. Many things that 
should have been taxed were brought into the colo- 
nies without anything being paid on them. This was 
of course smuggling, but to most of the colonists it 
did not seem wrong; as the laws about taxation 
seemed unjust they saw no harm in breaking them. 
Some, indeed, felt it was a brave and patriotic thing 
to do. 

But now England ordered the customs officers to 
be very strict about collecting the taxes. The 
colonial governors were ordered to help the officers 
in every way they could, and several British armed 
vessels were sent over and stationed along the coasts 
to see that no smuggling was carried on. The Gas pee 
was one of these. 

In 1763 Rhode Island owned more vessels in pro- 
portion to her size and population than any other 
colony.^ Many of them were small, of course, 
and sailed only up and down the bay or to the nearby 
colonies. But there were many larger ships, owned 



THE PEOPLE DESTROYED THE "GASPEE" 73 

by people in Providence or Newport or Bristol, and 
these vessels sailed away on longer journeys. Often 
they were gone for months, or even years. They 
visited strange countries, and when they returned 
they brought rich cargoes of sugar, molasses, spices, 
silks, and other valuable things. It seemed both 
unjust and unreasonable to the Rhode Island men 
that they should be expected to pay a tax to England 
on things they had bought with their own money 
and were bringing home in their own vessels to their 
own home ports. 

In 1764 the British schooner St. John had sailed 
into Narragansett Bay and had made herself ver\' 
troublesome to the traders by stopping their boats, 
examining their cargoes, and fining them if duties 
had not been paid. This was so troublesome, in- 
deed, that before long the people of Newport began 
to lay plans to destroy her. No doubt they would 
have done so, too, if a second English ship, the 
Squirrel, had not arrived. Two armed vessels, each 
ready to defend the other, were more than even the 
brave men of Newport dared to attack. So no at- 
tempt to harm them was made. But that same year, 
when the British frigate Maidstone anchored in the 
bay, the people of Newport seized her long-boats 
and carried them up to the Common in front of 
the courthouse and there burned them, shouting and 
cheering as the flames blazed up from the hated 
English boats. 

In 1769 the armed sloop Liberty, commanded by 
Captain Reid, began to cruise about our waters, 
stopping boats and examining their cargoes. Among 
the boats that were overhauled was a brig commanded 
by Captain Packwood. Captain Reid examined 



74 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

the brig's cargo, and soon found that all the duties 
had been paid. But for some reason some of Captain 
Packwood's clothes were carried on board the Liberty 
and were not returned to him. 

A little later Captain Packwood had himself 
rowed over to the Liberty and went on board to get 
his clothes himself; but the head officer refused to 
give them to him, and so ill-used him that he was glad 
to escape even without his clothes, and get back to 
his brig with a whole skin. Several muskets were 
fired after him as he went, and it was only good luck 
that he and his sailors were not wounded by the 
shots. 

Captain Reid was not on board the Liberty at the 
time. He had gone ashore for the day. That even- 
ing when he came down to the water-side to return 
to his ship he was stopped by a great crowd of angry 
Newq^ort people. They warned him that they in- 
tended to destroy the Liberty, and that he had better 
send for all his men to come ashore. 

Captain Reid looked from one to another of the 
angry faces around him. He saw the men meant 
what they said, and he was wise enough to take their 
advice. He ordered all his own men to leave the 
ship, and very soon after they left her she was 
boarded by the Newport men and brought up to the 
Long Wharf. There her masts were cut away, and 
she was sunk; but her boats were carried up to the 
Common and burned, as those of the Maidstone had 
been burned five years before. 

But hated as all the EngHsh vessels had been, none 
was as bitterly hated as the Gaspee in 1772. Her 
commander, Lieutenant Duddingston, was an in- 
solent, overbearing man. He seemed to take pride 



THE PEOPLE DESTROYED THE "GASPEE" 75 

in stopping the traffic of the bay. Even the little 
market-boats were stopped and searched as though 
he expected to find sugar or rum or molasses hidden 
imder the vegetables. The farmers complained 
that much of their produce was being ruined or 
destroyed by him. If vessels that were hailed did 
not stop immediately a shot was fired across their 
bows as a warning of what they might expect if they 
did not wait to be searched. Duddingston seemed 
to take particular pleasure in terrorizing the people 
in the smaller boats. People were almost afraid to 
cross the water from one town to another even on 
visits. 

Sometimes after a vessel had been searched the 
lieutenant would declare that the proper duties 
had not been paid on its cargo. If the owner com- 
plained and insisted that the duties had been paid, 
the articles were perhaps taken from him and sent 
on to Boston for the question to be decided there. ^ 
This was very inconvenient for the owners, and often 
caused them a heavy loss. Moreover, it was con- 
trary to an act of Parhament which provided that all 
such cases must be tried in the same colony in which 
the articles had been seized. 

The Gaspee had not been in our waters long before 
complaints about her began to come to the ears of 
the Governor of Rhode Island. The Governor wrote 
to Duddingston remonstrating with him for the way 
the traffic was being interrupted, but he received 
a most insolent answer. A second letter to the lieu- 
tenant went unanswered, but Admiral Montague, 
the commander of the British fleet, wrote to the 
Governor from Boston ordering him not to interfere 
with Duddingston in any way. The admiral's letter 



76 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

was even more insolent in tone than his lieutenant's 
had been. 

But while these letters were being exchanged be- 
tween the Governor and the British commanders, the 
Rhode Island people were remembering Captain 
Reid and longing to serve the Gaspee as the Liberty 
had once been served. 

It was on June 9th that Captain Thomas Lindsay 
set sail from the harbor of Newport, on his way to 
Providence. He knew the Gaspee would probably 
see him and that her men would try to stop him and 
search his cargo, but he made up his mind not to 
allow this if he could help it. It was with all his 
sails spread that he swept out of the harbor and 
started on his way. 

As he expected, he had not gone far before he was 
sighted by the Gaspee. A shot was fired across his 
bows as a warning for him to stop, but without pay- 
ing any attention to this the gallant captain kept 
on his way. 

The Gaspee now started in pursuit of the packet- 
boat, but "a stern chase is a long chase," and the 
packet was hard to overtake. 

About seven miles below Providence the shore 
runs out in a long spit of land called Namquit Point. 
The packet swept around this point, leaning far 
over to the brisk wind. Hoping to overtake her, 
the Gaspee tried to cut across a shallow place, but 
the water was even shallower than her commander 
had thought, and to the rage of the lieutenant she 
ran aground. Then there was a great running and 
shouting on board of her; orders were given and fol- 
lowed out in haste, but they were of no use. The 
Gaspee lay there in the hot summer sunlight careening 



THE PEOPLE DESTROYED THE "GASPEE" 



77 



over more and more as the hours passed by and the 
water sank away from her, for the tide was on the 
ebb. Before long it was clear that not only had she 
missed her chance of catching the packet, but that 
she would have to stay where she was until high 
tide, and that would not be until three o'clock the 
next morning. 

Meantime Captain Lindsay sailed quietly on to 
Providence, reaching there some time in the late 
afternoon. 

No sooner had he landed than he went straight to 
the house of Mr. John Brown, who was a great friend 
of his. Here he told his story of how the English 
schooner had tried to overtake and stop him, how 
it had run aground, and how even now it was lying 
there off Namquit Point and would not be able to 
float again until the next morning. 

It did not take the friends long to decide that now 
was the chance to rid themselves of the hated 
schooner forever. Nor did they doubt that there 
were plenty of men in Providence who would be 
eager to join them in the bold adventure of destroy- 
ing it. 

It was about two hours after sunset that same 
evening when the long roll of a drum suddenly 
sounded at the upper end of Main Street in Provi- 
dence, that long "towne street" that Roger WiUiams 
had laid out so many years before. R-r-rum-dum- 
dum! R-r-r-rum-dum-dum ! Many stopped to lis- 
ten to the call of the drum. Then it was still and a 
man was heard calling out in a loud voice: 

"The Gas pee has run aground on Namquit 
Point, and cannot float before three o'clock to- 
morrow morning! Those persons who feel disposed 



78 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

to go and destroy that troublesome vessel are in- 
vited to repair to Mr. James Sabin's house this 
evening!" 

Then again sounded the long roll of the drum. 
On down the street came the drummer; a pause, 
and again the message was shouted through the 
twilight. 

Of those who heard there were many who were 
eager to answer to the call. Before nine o'clock that 
evening a company of men had gathered in the long, 
low southeast room of Mr. Sabin's house. 

This house of Mr. Sabin's was an inn^ at the cor- 
ner of what are now South Main and Planet streets, 
and directly across from Fenner's wharf. 

The people who gathered there were armed, some 
with guns, some with pistols. Those who had no 
arms themselves had borrowed from their neighbors. 
They had very few bullets, however, so a lire was 
lighted in the great fireplace, and lead was hurriedly 
melted and poured into bullet moulds. 

Eight of the largest long-boats in the town had 
been brought up to Fenner's wharf and fastened 
there. The rowlocks and oars were now carefully 
muffled so that they could be used without making 
any noise. By ten o'clock everything was ready, the 
men entered the boats, and the expedition set out. 
Captain Whipple was put in command. 

On their way down the river the boats were 
stopped at Captain Cook's wharf and some of the 
men got for themselves paving-stones and staves. 
Then on they went again through the darkness, 
down past Fox Point, and around Field's Point, and 
so on toward where the Gas pee lay. 

So silent were they that they had come close to 



THE PEOPLE DESTROYED THE "GASPEE" 79 

the schooner before the watch discovered their ap- 
proach. Then his cry rang out, ''Who comes 
there?" 

No answer was made from the boats. Still in 
silence they glided on toward the Gaspee. 

Lieutenant Duddingston had heard his sentinel's 
call and had hurried on deck, and now he himself 
hailed them, his voice ringing out through the dark- 
ness: "Who comes there?" 

Captain Whipple answered: "I want to come on 
board." 

"Stand off! You can't come on board!" called 
the lieutenant. 

With a string of oaths Captain Whipple roared 
out: "I am the sheriff of the county of Kent; I 
am come for the commander of this vessel, and 
have him I will, dead or alive. Men, spring to 
your oars!" 

Almost at the same moment Joseph Bucklin, one 
of the men in the boats, said to a companion, "Eph, 
reach me your gun. I can kill that fellow." He 
meant Lieutenant Duddingston. The gun was 
handed to him and a shot rang out. 

Lieutenant Duddingston gave a groan and sank 
down on the companion-way. "I'm done for!" he 
exclaimed. Bucklin had shot him through the 
groin. 

Other shots followed, the men on the Gaspee firing 
rather wildly through the darkness, but no one else 
was wounded except a British sailor, who was shot in 
the head by some one in the long-boat. A few minutes 
later the Providence men had boarded the schooner, 
and the EngUsh seamen had surrendered to them 
without a blow. 



8o ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Lieutenant Duddingston was helped down to the 
cabin, and Captain Whipple immediately sent 
Dr. John Mawney down to dress his wounds. As 
soon as this was done, and the lieutenant had been 
made as comfortable as possible, he and his men were 
hurried down into the boats and rowed over to the 
Warwick side, and were put ashore there at the Still- 
house wharf. 

The Providence men returned to the Gaspee and 
set her on fire, and then drew off to a safe distance. 
Presently smoke began to rise from the schooner. 
It grew in volume, sweeping out like a black cloud 
and darkening the waters. Tongues of flame licked 
across the deck and up into the rigging. 

Silently the Providence men watched, resting on 
their oars. Suddenly their boat was shaken by the 
dull roar of an explosion. A mass of burning wood 
and rigging was shot high above the schooner and 
fell back into the water with a great splash. Bits of 
burning wood were thrown through the air even as 
far as where the long-boats lay. 

The powder in the Gaspee had exploded, blowing 
her to bits. Nothing was now left but the floating 
wreckage and a part of the hull. The night's work 
was finished and the Gaspee was destroyed. 

Still very quietly the long-boats were rowed back 
to town. The men who were in them separated and 
returned each to his own home. 

The strange thing is that the authorities who 
wished to punish these men for burning the schooner 
never were able to find out who they were. Almost 
every one in the town must have known, but no one 
would tell. 

Governor Wanton offered a reward of $500 for any 



THE PEOPLE DESTROYED THE "GASPEE" 8i 

information as to who they were. The King of 
England offered $5,000 reward for the leader of the 
expedition and $2, 500 for the arrest of any of the men 
who had been with him, but no one could be bribed 
or frightened into betraying the patriots who had 
delivered their colony from the hated Gaspee. 







The Sabin House in 1880 



NOTES 

1. In 1763 the citizens of Rhode Island owned more than 500 vessels, 
great and small, and more than 2,200 seamen were engaged in sailing 
them. 

2. Among the articles thus seized and sent to Boston were twelve hogs- 
heads of rum belonging to Nathanael Greene, Jr., he who was afterward 
one of our great generals in the Revolutionary War. 

3. The house is described as "a house of board and entertainment for 
gentlemen." 




Miss Peggy Champlin's Cheeks Grew Pinker and Pinker 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

Newport Learned 

About War 




It Became a Fashion with the French OfScers to Write Upon the Window Panes 



BEFORE the time of the Revolution Newport 
was one of the gayest and richest of all the 
New England towns. It was one of the most 
beautiful as well. It lay upon a hill that slopes 
gently down to the waters of a harbor, a harbor so 
wide and deep that all the fleets of the country could 
anchor there and still leave room for more. 

The fineness of the harbor led many shipowners to 
settle in Newport in the early days. In a few years 
its shipping interests became more important than 
those of any other town in the colonies except Bos- 
ton and New York. 

Other people besides shipowners were led to settle 
at New^Dort by one reason or another. Many Jews 
and Quakers^ came because of the religious freedom 
they found there; others came because of the mild 
and delightful climate,^ and still others for the sake 
of the gay life of the town, or for its science and 
learning. 

Many of the Newport merchants became very 
wealthy. They built handsome houses' and filled 

87 



88 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

them with fine furniture. Gay lawns laid out with 
terraces and flower-beds stretched down to the 
shining water. Often the merchants had slaves to 
wait on them and take care of their children, for 
Rhode Island was a slave-trading colony. In colonial 
times it carried on a larger slave-trade for its size 
than any other colony.'^ 

Many fine feasts and gay balls were given by the 
Newport people of those days, and there was much 
visiting back and forth between them and the Nar- 
ragansett people, on the other side of the bay, for 
the fashionable folk of Narragansett were as gay as 
those of Newport, and just as fond of ease and luxury 
and good eating. 

The Quakers of the town could not take part in the 
dances and music and gay feasts; they could not wear 
ribbons and laces and bright-colored silks like the 
fashionable folk. Their religion forbade aU those 
things. Their clothes must be plain in cut and color. 
They had to use plain language and say "thee" and 
" thou " instead of ''you". But their Quaker suits and 
dresses were generally made of the very best mate- 
rials^ (for that was allowed), and there were no 
houses where brighter silver or liner linen could be 
found than in some of the Quaker homes, and no 
place where the people had better things to eat and 
drink, either. 

And then there were simpler merry-makings than 
balls and feasts, in which even the young Quakers 
and Quakeresses could join. There were corn bush- 
ings and sewing and spinning bees. An old news- 
paper printed in 1767 tells how "thirty-seven young 
ladies of the town" went one afternoon to spin yarn 
for Mrs. Stiles, a clergyman's wife. They sent their 



NEWPORT LEARNED ABOUT WAR 89 

wheels and carried flax enough for a moderate day's 
spinning. They worked so busily and well that 
by sunset they were able to hand over to Mrs. 
Stiles "a present of one hundred skeins of yarn, 
fine enough for shirts for the best gentlemen in 
America." 

No doubt those young ladies of long ago had a 
merry time as they sat there, spinning and gossiping 
and laughing through the long afternoon, and per- 
haps having a cup of tea with Mrs. Stiles before they 
went home again. 

The Newport newspaper of those days was the 
Mercury. The press on which it was printed was 
brought to Newport in 1730 by James FrankUn,® 
and later on it passed into the hands of Mr. Solomon 
Southwick, the publisher of the Mercury. The 
press was worked by hand and the type was often 
rough and blurred. The newspaper itself was no 
larger than an ordinary sheet of writing-paper, but 
it was thought a very good paper in those days; it 
was read as eagerly by people then as our large sheets 
are read by the people nowadays. 

There was a great deal of learning in Newport : the 
Redwood Library^ held a very fine collection of books, 
finer indeed than was to be found in any other town 
in the colonies except Cambridge. 

But suddenly into all this pleasant, easy life of 
Newport there came terror and confusion and 
poverty. 

Late in the summer of 1775 several British vessels 
sailed into the harbor and anchored there. In Octo- 
ber they were joined by four more war vessels, and 
their commander. Captain Wallace, sent a demand 
that the country people around Ne^\'port should 



90 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

supply him with a large amount of provisions and 
livestock. Some they could give him, but not as 
much as he asked for. 

The people of the town became very much alarmed. 
They were afraid his vessels might fire on the town 
and burn and destroy it, as they had already de- 
stroyed the town of Falmouth in Maine. 

Furniture, goods, and chattels were packed, and 
the people fled back into the country where they 
would be out of range of the cannon. Some of 
them buried silver and other valuables in their cellars 
before leaving. Mr. Southwick made a hole in the 
yard of an old building on Broad Street^ and buried 
his press there, so that it might not fall into the hands 
of the British. 

As the panic grew the streets became almost 
blocked by the people hurrying to leave. Some were 
in carriages, some in carts, and some on foot. Fright- 
ened fathers and mothers pushed their way through 
the crowd carrying bundles and dragging crying 
children by the hand. People were filled with only 
one thought, that of escaping from the town. 

When the news of this panic came to the ears of 
Wallace he was very much disturbed. He had not 
meant to frighten the people into leaving Newport. 
The things they were carrying away with them might 
be very useful to him later on, if he quartered his 
men in the town. 

In order to give the people confidence he decided 
to sail away for a time, and leave Newport to settle 
down in peace. 

So one day those who were watching saw that the 
dreaded British war vessels were hauling up their 
anchors, sails were being set, and, presently, one 



NEWPORT LEARNED ABOUT WAR 91 

after another the great ships got under way, and 
slowly sailed out of the harbor. 

The greatest relief was felt in Newport over their 
going. Many people returned to their homes. 
Furniture was unpacked and the business of life 
was taken up again. But the relief did not last long. 
Shortly the fleet was back in the harbor, and this 
time the British landed and took possession of the 
town.^ 

The people were in despair. They dared not 
leave Newport now, for if they did they would not 
be allowed to carry any of their things with them. 
Everything they had would be kept by the British 
or destroyed. The British showed no respect for 
anything. A number of buildings that were of no 
use to them they burned. Churches were used for 
stables. The Colony House was turned into a hos- 
pital. All trading between Newport and the other 
colonies was stopped. The press that Mr. South- 
wick had buried ^° was found by the British and 
cleaned and set up, and they used it to print a paper 
of their own in favor of the King. Many of the 
other things that had been hidden were found by 
them and confiscated. 

Before the winter was over the suffering among the 
inhabitants was very great. Many people who had 
been wealthy were now so poor that they had not 
even enough to eat. Food was scarce and high. 
Com cost four dollars a bushel, and potatoes two 
dollars. Wood was worth twenty dollars a cord. 
Several old houses were torn down and used for fuel. 
A ship was hauled up on the shore and broken to 
pieces, and people eagerly gathered up the planks 
and carried them home to burn. Help was sent 



92 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

the sufferers from the other colonies — food, clothing, 
wood, and money — but not enough came to meet 
the bitter need of the people. 

For four years the British held possession of the 
town, and for four years the suffering and poverty 
grew greater and greater. 

Then in 1779 it began to be whispered about that 
the British were going to leave Newport. The peo- 
ple hardly dared to believe this: it seemed too good to 
be true. But in October ships and transports began 
to gather in the harbor. Then came an order that 
on a certain day all the inhabitants of the town must 
keep within doors upon pain of death; the British 
were going to embark for New York. 

All the day of the embarkation the inhabitants 
were shut in their houses, but they could hear from 
without in the streets shouts and orders, and the 
tramp of marching feet. There were other sounds, 
too; sounds of chopping and tearing, the crash of 
falling timber, and the clang of metal. Those who 
looked from the windows could see columns of smoke 
rising from different parts of the town. Later on 
the British began to form in troops and march down 
toward the harbor, and by night they had all gone. 
The streets lay silent and deserted. At last the 
inhabitants could leave their houses. But those 
who ventured out found a ruined Newport. ^^ Be- 
fore leaving, the British had destroyed everything 
they could. They had filled up the wells; they had 
cut down almost all the trees; the beautiful lawns 
and orchards were laid waste. The lighthouse at 
Beaver Tail had been burned; four hundred and 
eighty buildings were destroyed; the wharves had 
been broken up and the British had carried off with 



NEWPORT LEARNED ABOUT WAR 93 

them the town records^- that had been kept since 
the earhest settlement of the town, and much val- 
uable machinery, and all the church bells but one. 
That one they left because it had been a present to 
the church from Queen Anne. 

It seemed impossible that Newport could ever 
again become a prosperous, thriving town; the ruin 
had been too great. 

It was in the next summer, that of 1780, that news 
was brought to Newport that another fleet was com- 
ing to anchor in her harbor. But this news was re- 
ceived with joy, for the vessels that were coming 
were from France, and the French were our good 
friends and allies, and were coming to help us in our 
war with England. 

Poor as New[Dort now was, it made ready to show 
the Frenchmen that its people were as gay and hos- 
pitable as ever, in spite of their poverty. When the 
fleet arrived a warm welcome was given to the visi- 
tors. The best of all the city had left was offered to 
them, and a number of balls and dinners were given. 

The French returned these entertainments with 
other gayeties that they tried to make as brilliant 
as possible. They were delighted with the people 
of Newport. They admired their freshness and sim- 
plicity and refinement. They seemed particularly 
charmed with the quiet, simple life of the Quakers. 

It became a fashion with the French officers to 
write upon the window panes, with their diamond 
rings, the names of the young ladies they considered 
most beautiful or charming, and the name of many a 
Newport belle was to be seen on the panes of the 
Newport houses. Unluckily almost ah those panes 
of glass have been broken and the names have dis- 



94 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

appeared with them, or are left only in old letters 
and books. The Count de Rochambeau, who had 
come over with the fleet, had his headquarters at the 
Vernon House, at the corner of Clarke and Mary 
streets, and it was in this house that Washington 
was entertained when he came to Newport in 
March, 1781. 

This visit of Washington's was felt to be a great 
event for the town. Every possible preparation was 
made to do him honor, not only by the people of 
Newport but by their French visitors as well. 

When the day came that had been set for his 
arrival the French admiral's own barge was sent 
over to the Conanicut side to meet him, and as it 
brought him across the harbor the cannon of the 
French fleet fired a salute to him. Again and again 
they thundered out their salute to the Commander- 
in-chief of the American army. 

A great crowd had gathered at Ferry Dock to see 
Washington land. They cheered and waved their 
hats as he stepped out of the barge, and all the bells 
in the town began to ring. 

The French troops were lined up three deep on 
each side of the street all the way from the dock to 
the Vernon House. As Washington passed between 
them the sound of cheering on either side swxpt on 
with him like a great wave, and above all the noise 
the bells kept up their clanging. 

The people of Newport were anxious to have Wash- 
ington see their town, and a torchlight procession 
had been arranged for that evening to escort him 
through the streets. Many of the people who 
wished to take part in this procession were so poor 
that they could not afford to buy a torch to carry. 



NEWPORT LEARNED ABOUT WAR 95 

The Town Council, therefore, ordered a great quan- 
tity of candles to be bought and given to those who 
could not buy for themselves. 

Thirty boys headed the procession, carrying can- 
dles fixed on the ends of sticks, then came Wash- 
ington, with Rochambeau and an escort of citizens 
and French officers. 

Very fortunately the night was clear and still. 
There was not a breath of air to blow the lights of 
the torches. Washington could be plainly seen by 
the throngs along the streets, and those who crowded 
the windows of the houses. He was a very tall 
man, taller by half a head than any of his escort, 
and he had a serene and noble face. When they 
returned to the Vernon House Washington stopped 
on the top step, and, turning, thanked the boys who 
had carried the candles. 

One Httle lad, too young to march with the others, 
had heard a great deal about Washington, and what a 
great thing it was to see him. He thought Wash- 
ington must be some very strange and wonderful 
being, and begged his father to lift him up so he could 
look. The father raised the little fellow to his 
shoulder and pointed out the general to him. The 
child stared and stared with disappointed eyes. 
Then he cried, "Why, father, Washington is nothing 
but a man!" In his disappointment his little voice 
rose so high and clear through the still night that 
Wasliington heard him. He smiled. "Yes, my 
lad," he answered back, ^' and nothing hut a man." 

The day after his arrival was spent by Washing- 
ton and Rochambeau in talking over the state of 
the country and planning the spring and summer 
campaigns. But at four o'clock all business was 



96 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

put aside and they sat down to a fine dinner. The 
room where they ate was the large, square dining- 
room of the Vernon House, facing on Mary Street. 
It had been handsomely decorated with French flags, 
crossed swords, and a quantity of silver that the 
French had brought with them. 

In the evening a ball was given for Washington 
by the officers at Mrs. Cowley's Assembly Rooms on 
Church Street, three doors from Thames Street. 
These rooms had also been handsomely decorated 
by the officers and the ladies. 

Balls began earlier in those days than now, and 
very soon after dinner the guests began to arrive on 
foot, or in their hea\y, old-time coaches. The ladies 
wore flowered silks, gay satins and laces, and the 
gentlemen were just as fine in their embroidered 
waistcoats, long coats, satin breeches, and glittering 
buckles. 

Washington was to open the ball, and he chose for 
his partner Miss Peggy Champlin. Miss Champlin 
was perhaps not the most beautiful of the young 
ladies at the ball, but she had a grace and sweetness 
that charmed every one who saw her. 

As Washington took her hand to lead her out, 
whispers and glances passed between the French 
officers. Rochambeau and his suite crossed to 
where the musicians were sitting, took their place, 
and began themselves to play for the dance. As a 
compliment to Washington the one chosen was 
"The Successful Campaign." The figures in it were 
very much like the figures in the Virginia Reel, but it 
was danced in a slower and more dignified manner. 

Miss Peggy Champlin' s cheeks grew pinker and 
pinker as she walked through the figures of the dance. 



NEWPORT LEARNED ABOUT WAR 



97 



and curtsied and gave her hand to her tall partner. 
To be dancing with the great Washington, the Com- 
mander-in-chief of the whole American army, seemed 
almost more honor than she could bear. 

The ball was the last of the entertainments given 
in honor of Washington. The next day he left New- 
port and soon was back in camp, cheering up his 
soldiers, planning battles, and winning victory and 
freedom for his country. 

But many a long year afterward the people of 
Newport loved to remember and talk about the ball 
where Washington danced "The Successful Cam- 
paign" with their Newi:)ort belle, pretty Peggy 
Champlin. 




ThoB* Who Looked from the Windows Could See Columns of Smoke Rising from Dif- 
ferent Parts of the Town 



NOTES 

1. The Society of Friends, or Quakers as they were commonly called, 
was estabhshed in Rhode Island in very early times. The first record of 
their montlily meeting is dated 1676. 

2. Many attribute the mildness of Newport to the course of the Gulf 
stream, which, by a sudden curve, ahnost washes the shores of the island. 

3. Colonel Godfrey Malbone's house, just outside of Newport, was 
said to be the finest house in all the colonies. 

4. Rhode Island's large slave-trade is, perhaps, largely attributable to 
the influence of the many West Indians who came to spend the summer at 
Newport. The slaves of Rhode Island were, however, emancipated in 
1784, and the introduction of slaves into the state, on any pretext what- 
ever, was forbidden. 

5. The dress of a j'oung Quakeress of 1 780 is thus described by one of 
the French officers : " .\ kind of English dress, fitting the figure closely, and 
was white as milk; a muslin apron of the same color, and a large handker- 
chief gathered close around the neck." On her head she wore 'a simple 
little cap of baptiste, with round plaits." 

6. A brother of Benjamin Franklin. 

7. Named after Abraham Redwood, one of the leading citizens of New- 
port. He gave £500 for the purchase of standard books in London, and 
recommended building a library for them, and also for such other books 
as might be purchased for Newport. Mr. Redwood was a Quaker. 

8. This building was known as the Kilburn House. 

9. The troops quartered on the town numbered 8,000 Enghsh and Hes- 
sians. 

10. The press was set up in the Vaughan House, which stood at the cor- 
ner of Parade and Thames streets. 

11. "Newport never recovered from the cruel blow. More than half 
the population had forsaken the island, and the commerce that once filled 
its crowded wharves was either annihilated or had sought less hazardous 
resorts, never to return. The Jews, whose enterprise had done so much 
for their adopted state, had all left the town." — (Arnold's "History of 
the State of Rhode Island.") 

At the time the British left the town the number of inhabitants was 
reduced from 12,000 to 4,000. 

12. "The vessel containing these precious papers was sunk at Hurl Gate. 
Three years afterward the half-obliterated fragments were returned to the 
town, and a copy was made of such portions as were still legible." (Ar- 
nold's "History of the State of Rhode Island.") Other of the records 
have since been restored and bound. 




She Was the " Glasgow " 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

A Rhode Island Man Became 

The First Admiral Of The 

American Navy 




Hopkins Departing for the Alfred 



UP TO the year 1775 the American colonies 
had no navy. When the troubles with 
England began English ships could sail our 
waters and enter our harbors unhindered, for we 
had no vessels able to defend us. 

Rhode Island was the first of all the colonies to see 
that she needed armed vessels to protect her, and 
her assembly ordered two frigates to be fitted out 
for this purpose. 

Later on it was the Rhode Island delegates who 
urged on Congress the need of having a navy as well 
as an army. Other delegates followed the lead of 
those from Rhode Island in urgmg it, and in October 
of 1775 Congress ordered two "swift-sailing vessels" 
to be fitted out as warships. In December it or- 
dered thirteen more warships to be built. 

A Marine Committee was appointed to have 
charge of all naval matters. It would also be neces- 
sary to appoint an admiral to command the fleet, and 
the choice of a man for this position was a very im- 
portant matter. We were on the brink of a war with 
a great and powerful nation. There would be 
battles on the sea as well as by land. The com- 

103 



104 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

mander of the navy would be second in importance 
only to the commander of the army, and the best 
man must be chosen for the position. 

Captain Esek Hopkins^ was a Rhode Island man. 
Like many of the men of his colony, he had been used 
to the sea all his life. He had made many voyages, 
he had captured several prizes, and he was part 
owner of more than one good sailing vessel. The 
farm where he and his wife^ and family lived was 
just outside of Providence. Even though he had 
been away from home so much, his neighbors had 
learned to look to him as a man of good sense and 
judgment. 

At the time the war with England broke out 
Captain Hopkins was almost sixty years old, but 
he was still strong and energetic and daring. He was 
a handsome man, with well-shaped features, large, 
flashing dark eyes, and a determined look. 

In the summer of 1775 a great deal of fear was 
felt in Providence lest the British fleet should enter 
the harbor. Captain Hopkins was put in charge of 
its defences. He arranged a floating battery, fire- 
ships, and a boom and chain that could be stretched 
across the mouth of the harbor if necessary. These 
protections were so strong that no British vessel 
dared to try to enter there. 

Captain Hopkins was also put in command of the 
colonial forces in Rhode Island. When the British 
fleet was anchored at Newport and threatening the 
town, Hopkins marched to its relief with his troops, 
and did much to protect it from the enemy. He 
served his colony well in many other ways besides. 

This was the man who was chosen by unanimous 
vote of Congress to be the head of the navy. His 



FIRST ADMIRAL OF THE NAVY 105 

title was to be, not only Admiral and Commodore, 
but Commander-in-chief of the Navy, just as Wash- 
ington's title was Commander-in-chief of the Army. 

As soon as Commodore Hopkins heard of his 
appointment he gave up his command of the Rhode 
Island forces, enlisted one hundred Rhode Island 
men to serve on his vessels, and set sail for Philadel- 
phia. Here he was very busy inspecting his vessels 
and planning out a cruise that was to begin early in 
January. 

He was not satisfied with the size of his squadron, 
however. He felt he needed more vessels for what 
he had to do. With the consent of Congress he or- 
dered eight merchantmen to be fitted out as addi- 
tional warships. 

Lord Dunmore, with a squadron of British vessels, 
had been raiding the towns along the southern coast 
and capturing arms, ammunition, and other supplies. 
The first order that Congressgave the Commodore was 
to sail down to the relief of these southern colonies. 

The 9th of January, 1775, was the day chosen for 
the fleet to set sail. The weather that winter was 
very cold and the river was filled with floating 
blocks of ice. The admiral's flagship, the Alfred, 
was anchored out almost opposite the foot of Walnut 
Street, and the other vessels^ lay as near it and each 
other as was safe. No mast in all the little fleet 
as yet showed either flag or pennant. Not until 
the Commodore took command would they raise 
their colors. 

Very early in the morning of the 9th crowds began 
to gather down by the river. They had come to see 
the Commodore embark. A barge lay waiting for 
him at the Walnut Street wharf. 



io6 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

A little before nine o'clock those who had managed 
to find a place close to the barge heard the crowds 
farther up the street cheering. The sound came 
nearer and nearer. Then a way opened tlirough the 
throng, and the Commodore appeared with his es- 
cort, and stepped into the barge. His bold and 
handsome face was somewhat reddened by the cold 
wind. For the sake of warmth he wore a long cloak 
over his uniform. His hat was three-cornered, and 
his hair unpowdered. 

As he entered the barge a roar of artillery sounded 
across the water. It was a salute to the Commander 
of the Nayy. 

The oarsmen had some trouble in making their 
way through the floating cakes of ice, but they 
reached the Alfred without any accident, and the 
Commodore mounted to her deck. 

As he boarded her, her Captain, Saltonstall, gave 
the signal and Lieutenant John Paul Jones ran up 
the first flag of our American Navy to the masthead. 
The flag was of yeUow silk. The design upon it 
was a pine tree and a rattlesnake. Above this 
design were the words, ^' An Appeal to God''; below, 
the threatening warning, "DonH tread on we." 

When those on shore saw the fluttering bit of silk 
slide up to the masthead a great shout burst from 
them. Hats were waved or thrown up in the air. 
Everywhere there was the greatest enthusiasm. 

And now all was stir and bustle aboard the fleet. 
Anchors were hauled in, sails set, the great ships 
leaned to the chill wind, and slowly they began to 
move off on their way to the Delaware Capes and the 
open ocean. 

But the river was so blocked with ice that it was 



FIRST ADMIRAL OF THE NAVY 107 

a full month before the squadron sailed out between 
the Capes. The weather turned stormy, with sleet 
and hail that coated masts and decks and rigging 
with ice. Before they had been out long many of 
the men fell ill, and were no longer able to do their 
share of the work. Two of the vessels became sep- 
arated from the fleet and did not rejoin it until 
some time later.'' 

Beaten and battered by storms, the fleet reached 
the southern coast at last. They found that the Brit- 
ish squadron had taken shelter in a harbor there, 
where they were protected by the guns on shore. 
Their position was a very strong one — so strong, in 
fact, that Commodore Hopkins dared not attack 
them. He would run too great a risk of having his 
fleet crippled, while he himself would be able to do but 
Httle damage to the enemy. Moreover, few of his 
men were in a condition to fight. Many of them 
were so ill they were scarcely able to crawl about the 
decks. 

After carefuUy considering aU this Commodore 
Hopkins decided to sail down toward the Bahama 
Islands. He had learned that the English had 
stored there, at the town of New Providence, a 
large supply of arms and ammunition. These arms 
and ammunition would be of the greatest use to the 
government at home if he could capture them. 

It was early in March when the fleet reached the 
islands and sailed into the harbor of New Providence. 

The town had, at that time, two forts overlooking 
the harbor. The arms and supplies were stored in 
the larger one of these. When the American fleet 
appeared many of the inhabitants of the town fled 
from their houses and took refuge in this fort. 



io8 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Commodore Hopkins landed two hundred marines 
and fifty sailors, and marched first upon the smaller 
fort. He hoped to take it without much difficulty. 
As a matter of fact, no attempt at defence was made; 
the gates of the fort were opened to the Americans, 
and its keys and everything in it were handed over to 
them. 

The Commodore now sent out a proclamation 
saying he had only come to New Providence for the 
arms and armnunition, and if these were made over 
to him all private property would be left untouched, 
and no harm would come to any of the inhabitants 
of the town. 

As soon as those who had taken shelter in the fort 
heard this proclamation they quietly went back to 
their own homes. Not enough men stayed in the 
fort even to fire the guns, and the Governor could not 
do otherwise than open the gates to the Americans 
and let them take what they would. Not a shot was 
fired on either side, not a man was wounded. 

Commodore Hopkins found an even larger supply 
of arms and ammunition than he had hoped. There 
were eighty-eight cannon, fifteen mortars, round shot 
and powder, and a large store of shells. This was 
indeed a valuable lot to have captured, and with- 
out bloodshed. 

The marines and sailors at once set to work carry- 
ing the booty down to the seashore and loading it 
on the vessels. It was a heavy cargo for the little 
fleet — so heavy, indeed, that they could not carr}- 
it all. The Commodore was obliged to borrow a 
sloop to help. This sloop he promised to retum 
as soon as he landed its cargo at home. 

When all was read}' the fleet began to make its way 



FIRST ADMIRAL OF THE NAVY log 

slowly northward. The load it carried was too heavy 
for fast sailing. The vessels stayed together as much 
as possible, and a careful lookout was kept for any 
of the enemy's craft. 

Overloaded as the vessels were, they would have 
been in a bad position if they had fallen in with the 
enemy's fleet. Two British vessels they did meet 
on the way north. One was the schooner Hawk, and 
the other the brig Bolton. They were both small 
craft, however, and in spite of the cargo our vessels 
were carrying they managed to capture both of 
them, and took them on with them as prizes. 

By the night of April 6th the fleet had reached 
Long Island Sound. One of the smaller vessels 
was in the lead; the Cahot followed, and the others 
were not far behind. 

Just outside the Sound the lights of an unknown 
vessel were seen. The small craft that was in the 
lead hailed her. The answer from the stranger was a 
broadside that showed she carried a number of heavy 
guns. She showed too much strength indeed for the 
smaller vessel to dare to engage with her. It drew 
off and made haste to escape through the darkness. 

Later on three other vessels of the fleet, the Cabot, 
the Alfred, and the Andrea Doria, came up, and each 
in turn fired on the stranger. Their shots were re- 
turned, and for three hours a brisk fight was kept 
up. The American vessels suffered considerable 
damage. Ten men were killed and many more 
were severely injured.^ The vessels were so over- 
weighted with their cargoes that they were not able 
to engage as closely as they might otherwise have 
done, and each of the three was forced, in turn, to 
withdraw from the fight. 



no ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Dawn was now breaking across the water. In the 
growing hght the strange vessel loomed up huge 
and dark. The smoke of her broadside still curled 
across the water and mingled with the morning mist. 
She was the Glasgow, a British war vessel of twenty- 
four guns. She, too, had suffered in the engage- 
ments. Some of her masts were splintered, and 
part of her rigging torn away. 

While it was still scarcely light the Columbus, with 
Captain Whipple in command, came bearing down 
on her. 

The Glasgow was too much damaged to meet this 
new attack. She took to flight, making off in the 
direction of Newport. The Columbus followed in 
hot pursuit of her. 

Commodore Hopkins saw with anxiety the direc- 
tion that the chase was taking. The British squad- 
ron lay in Newport Harbor, and he feared it might 
be drawn out and attack him. He signaled Captain 
Whipple to give up the chase. This the gallant Cap- 
tain was very loth to do, but he dared not disobey. 
The Columbus returned to its place in the fleet, and 
the whole squadron sailed on and reached New Lon- 
don without further adventure. 

When the news became known through the colo- 
nies that the Admiral had returned from this first 
cruise with valuable prizes, and without having lost 
a single man, there was great rejoicing. Praises 
were heaped on the Commander-in-chief. Congress 
itself passed a resolution thanking him for what he 
had done. The arms and ammunition would be of 
the greatest use to the government. Hopkins 
could hardly have done it a greater service than in 
capturing them. 



FIRST ADMIRAL OF THE NAVY iii 

Of the cannon he had brought home the Admiral 
sent twenty-sLx to Newport, seven to Dartmouth, 
and thirty-six he left at New London. 

But the enthusiasm over the Admiral's cruise 
soon died dowTi. Before long criticism as well as 
praise began to be heard. People wondered why 
the Glasgow had been allowed to escape when the 
whole fleet had been there to stop her. The Admiral 
was blamed because she had not been captured. He 
began to be blamed, too, for having gone down to 
the Bahamas at all when his orders had been to 
protect the southern coast. Most of all, he was 
criticised for the way he had placed the cannon. 
There was a strong feeling that he should never have 
given them to the smaller towns, as he had done. 
They should have been sent to New York and Phila- 
delphia, and some weeks after his return Congress 
demanded that he should do this. 

But xAdmiral Hopkins was not able to meet this 
demand. The cannon were no longer in his posses- 
sion. Newport was willing to do as Congress or- 
dered, and send on the twenty-six that had been left 
with her, but the Governor of Connecticut refused 
to give up those that were in his towns, and the 
feeling against the Admiral grew stronger than ever. 

It was less than two months since Congress had 
passed a resolution thanking the Admiral for all he 
had done. Now it passed a resolution that was very 
different from that first one, for it was a resolution 
of censure; it declared that "the conduct of Commo- 
dore Hopkins deserves censure, and this house does 
accordingly censure him." 

This resolution must have been a great blow to the 
commodore. It was a rebuke given to him before 



112 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

all the country. It must have been particularly 
hard to bear because it followed so closely after the 
praises he had received. His brother Stephen was 
so offended by it that he left Philadelphia and did not 
enter the city again until a year afterward. 

Some good friends the Commodore still had, even 
in Congress, but his enemies were very bitter ones. 
Everything they could do to injure him they did. 

Perhaps his worst enemies of all were the owners 
of certain armed vessels called "privateers." The 
vessels were called privateers because they be- 
longed to private companies or people. The owners 
held letters from the government that gave their 
ships the right to capture any British vessels the}- 
met, whenever and however they could. 

Many of the captured vessels were rich prizes. 
Often they were sold for a great deal of money — 
money that went into the pockets of the owners of 
the privateers, or were shared by them with their 
captains and seamen. 

These shipowners were jealous of the navy and 
the prizes it took. They felt it meant just that 
much loss of money to them. They wished to take 
all the prizes themselves. They did all they could, 
by offering higher wages and a larger share of prize 
money, to make the seamen desert from the navy 
and serve on their privateers. 

Often the Admiral's vessels lay idle and useless 
because he could not get men for them, while the 
privateers sailed up and down the waters, attacking 
and capturing and selhng many a vessel that should 
have been a government prize. 

Commodore Hopkins urged Congress to stop the 
privateering, or at least to Hmit it, but Congress 



FIRST ADMIRAL OF THE NAVY 113 

would not move in the matter. Too many of the 
members were themselves owners, or part owners, of 
privateers. Neither would Congress do anything 
to restrain the captains who were taking on board 
their own vessels the deserters from the na\y. 

At one time Washington lent Hopkins two hundred 
and fifty men from the army to man his vessels, but 
some of these fell ill, others deserted, and after a 
short time Washington demanded that those who 
were left should be sent back to him, as they were 
needed on land. 

Now and then Hopkins was able to fit out a few 
vessels and send them on cruises, but much of the 
work Congress instructed him to do he was unable 
to do on account of this lack of men. 

His officers, too, became careless in their work. 
They were often disrespectful, and even disobedient, 
but their commander had no power to dismiss them. 

As his enemies grew stronger they made several 
attempts to have the Commodore himself dismissed 
from the navy, but in this they failed, for a time at 
least. Instead of dismissing him, the Marine Com- 
mittee paid Hopkins a great compliment. They 
instructed him to buy the armed schooner Hawk and 
change its name to the Hopkins. They also gave 
him the right to hoist his own flag on any and every 
vessel; for at that time almost every vessel in the 
navy carried a different flag; there was no especial 
one that was in use for all. 

This compliment from the Marine Committee 
was a matter for great rejoicing among Hopkins's 
friends. 

But their rejoicings did not last long. His ene- 
mies were still working busily against him, and in 



114 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

March, 1777, they partly succeeded in what they 
were trying to do, for the Admiral was "suspended" 
from the na\y. About a year later, in January, 
1778, they succeeded altogether, and Commodore 
Hopkins was dismissed from the service. 

Many of the Commodore's friends were afraid 
the unjust treatment he had received from the 
government might turn him against his country 
and drive him into taking part with the British, but 
this it never did. Hopkins was always a true and 
faithful patriot, and served the colonies well as long 
as he w^as able. He drilled troops, he was in the 
assembly, and took part in many public events. 

He lived to be eighty- two years old, and died 
at the home farm near Providence. The old house 
in which he spent so much of his life is still standing, 
and a tablet in his honor marks it as the home of the 
first Commander of the American navy.^ 




^ -^'u ^^^^^.jj^'^fc^sC'i; ■ 




eS^ ^_P^y^' 



The Hopkins Homestead 



NOTES 

1. Esek Hopkins was born April 26, 1718, at Chapumiscook, now Chop- 
mist, Scituate, R. I. He went to Newport in 1741, and lived there until 
1755, when he removed to his farm at Providence. 

2. His wife was Desire Burroughs, the daughter of one of the leading 
merchants of Newport. 

3. These vessels were the Alfred, flagship, twenty- four guns, Dudley 
Saltonstall commanding; Columbus, twenty guns, Abraham Whipple 
commsinding; Andrea Doria, fourteen guns, Nicholas Biddle cammanding; 
Cabot, fourteen guns, John B. Hopkins commanding; sloop Promdcnce 
(formerly Katy), twelve guns. Captain Hazzard commanding; Hornet, 
ten guns; Fly, eight guns. 

4. The Fly and the Hornet were the two vessels that were separated 
from the others. The Fly rejoined the fleet at New Providence, but the 
Hornet was not seen again during the entire cruise. 

5 . Among those who were severely wounded was Captain John B. Hop- 
' kins, the commander of the Cabot. He was a son of Admiral Hopkins. 

6. The old Hopkins farm i? now within the limits of the city of Provi- 
dence. A part of it is used as public-school playgrounds. 




Suddenly the Boy Was Filled with Shyness 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

A Rhode Island Boy 

Became A Famous 

General 




Safely They Passed the British Soldiers. Nathanael NoddinK tu Them in Friendly Fashion 

NATHANAEL GREENE was one of eight 
brothers. His father was a blacksmith who 
had a forge and mill at Warwick. The 
blacksmith was a Quaker, and a stern, hard-working 
man. He labored all day himself, and he did not see 
why his sons should not do the same. They had no 
books but the Bible or a few volumes of sermons. 
They had no toys nor games, but then they would 
have had no time to play with them, busy as they 
were from morning till night. 

But Nathanael was a lively, high-spirited lad, 
and fond of fun and pleasure. Whenever he could 
he would steal an hour from his work, and slip away 
to join the other boys of the town in their games. 

If it had been one of his brothers who did this, no 
doubt he would have been punished for it, but 
Nathanael was his father's favorite, and the black- 
smith was more lenient with him than with the 
others. 

None of the eight lads ever had very much school- 
ing. Their father would have thought it a waste of 
tinle. 

It was not until Nathanael was fourteen that he 
began to be interested in books and study. ^ He had 
never read much before then, but now he borrowed 

119 



I20 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

books wherever and whenever he could, and would 
sit poring over them in every spare moment, forget- 
ful of everything around him. 

But borrowing did not content him. He longed 
to own books of his own. He knew his father would 
never give him the money to buy them, so he de- 
termined to earn some money for himself. 

Though Nathanael was only a boy, he was very 
skilful in his work, particularly at the forge. Now in 
his few leisure moments he began to work out a 
number of little toys, tiny hammers, anchors, and 
little play forges. Then the next time his father 
sent one of the older boys to Newport on business 
Nathanael begged to be allowed to go, too. 

In the town he had no trouble in selling his toys. 
They were so prettily made that his father's custom- 
ers were glad to buy them. The money he received 
for them was enough to pay for several books. 

Telling his brother that he would meet him at the 
boat-landing later on, Nathanael hurried away to a 
book-shop he had seen on one of the streets. He 
opened the door and went in. The shop was empty 
except for the bookseller and a gentleman in the 
dress of a clergyman, who was talking to him. This 
gentleman was the Rev. Dr. Stiles, who was after- 
ward the president of Yale College.^ 

Suddenly the boy was filled with shyness. He 
stood holding the money tightly in his hand, but was 
so ignorant that he did not even know what books to 
ask for, nor what he wanted. 

Dr. Stiles pitied his confusion, and he liked the 
bright, honest look of the lad's face. He began to 
talk to him, and in such a kindly way that Nathanael 
soon found himself telling of how he wanted to read 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 121 

and study, and had earned the money for some books, 
and now did not know what to buy. 

Dr. Stiles advised him to get "Watts' Elements of 
Logic," "Locke on the Human Understanding," and 
a copy of "Euclid." 

This the boy did, and when, a little later, he left 
the shop he was the happy possessor of three books 
of his very own, books that were the beginning of 
what afterward grew to be a fine library. 

When he reached home he set about studying these 
books and soon knew them almost by heart. He did 
not allow his reading to interfere with his work, 
however. Indeed he labored so hard at the forge 
that he became somewhat lame; a lameness that he 
never entirely got rid of. 

It was his industry that made his father willing 
for him to go on with his studies, and even, later on, 
to take up Latin and mathematics under a master. 

But in the midst of aU this work and study Na- 
thanael again began to long for some exercise and 
amusement. He somehow managed to learn to 
dance, a thing that is strictly forbidden by the 
Quakers. After this, many a night, while the rest of 
the household were sleeping, Nathanael would 
quietly slip from his window and hurry away to join 
the other young people in their frolics. 

But one time, when Nathanael came home after 
an evening spent in dancing, he saw a dark figure 
pacing up and down in front of the house. It was 
the sturdy blacksmith, and in his hand he carried a 
heavy horsewhip. Nathanael at once guessed that 
his father had discovered his absence, and meant to 
punish him for it. Close by lay a pile of loose 
shingles. Hastily stooping down in the shadow, 



122 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Nathanael picked up several of them and slipped 
them in under his clothing, next to his body. Then 
boldly he marched forward to meet his father. As 
he had expected, the angry old Quaker seized him by 
the collar, and gave him the worst thrashing he had 
ever received. The whip was heavy, the blacksmith's 
arm was strong, but Nathanael never fUnched nor 
made a sound. Angry as his father was, he could 
not but admire the lad's pluck and bravery. But the 
fact was that, thanks to the shingles, Nathanael 
never felt one of the blows that fell upon him. 

This adventure put a stop to Nathanael's fun for a 
time, but not for long. Soon he was stealing out 
again at night, but never again was he caught at it. 

As Nathanael grew older his father came more and 
more to depend on him. In 1770 he gave him entire 
charge of a mill at Coventry. The young man was 
very proud of being made a mill manager. He built 
himself a comfortable house on a hill overlooking 
the Pawtuxet River. 

In this house he had a special room for his books. 
He had almost three hundred, and that was an un- 
usually large library for those days.^ 

Mmost all the books he bought after he came to 
Coventry were about the lives of great generals, or 
told of wars and battles. Over these books Nathan- 
ael pored as eagerly as, when a boy, he had pored 
over his Latin and mathematics. Often he sat up 
almost all night long reading them. Only toward 
morning would he throw himself down for an hour or 
two of sleep before the day's work should begin. The 
great battlefields and the plans of the generals grew 
as familiar to him as his own house and the manage- 
ment of the mill. 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 123 

And now, too, he began to go to watch the militia 
drills, and to take an interest in the raising of colonial 
troops. This was a great offence to the Quakers, for 
they believed that anything that had to do with 
fighting was wrong. They remonstrated with him, 
and urged him to keep away from the drills, and 
when they found he would not heed them, they 
"read him out of meeting" — that is, they took 
from him all rights in their society. They would no 
longer allow him to belong to it. 

This must have been a great sorrow to Nathanael, 
for he was still a Quaker in many ways, even though 
he did believe that in some cases the only right thing 
to do was to fight. 

The breath of war was in all the land at this time. 
The American colonies were all astir with discontent 
and unrest. There was much talk of independence 
and freedom from British rule. Many men in the 
colonies were still loyal to the king; Tories they were 
called, and they wished for nothing better than to be 
English subjects. But there were many others who 
were in favor of freedom and self-government. 
These were called Whigs. 

The feeling between the Whigs and Tories was 
very bitter. It was a feeling that often turned 
friends into enemies, and divided families with fierce 
quarrels. 

Nathanael Greene was a Whig. He was one of 
the first in the country to say that the time was com- 
ing when it would be necessary for the colonies to 
separate from England entirely. 

In 1774, four years after he came to Coventry, 
Nathanael married Miss Katherine Littlefield, the 
daughter of one of his neighbors. Soon after he 



124 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

married he laid aside his Quaker dress, openly de- 
clared he would be a soldier, and joined the Kentish 
Guards. 

But he had no musket, and that was a great 
drawback for a soldier. A musket was a hard thing 
to buy in those days, too, when England had grown 
suspicious, and was doing her best to keep the colo- 
nists from arming. 

Nathanael again put on his Quaker garb, his drab 
coat and broad-brimmed hat, and journeyed away 
to Boston. There, thanks to his dress, he was able 
to buy the coveted musket. Every one knew the 
Quakers were in favor of peace ; no one could imagine 
that that pleasant, quiet-looking young Quaker 
could want a musket for shooting anything but rab- 
bits or wild turkeys. 

The purchase was made, but the next thing was 
how to get the musket back to Rhode Island. All 
about the town was the British garrison. If any one 
were found carrying firearms out of the town he 
would almost certainly be arrested, and perhaps kept 
a prisoner. The only thing to do was to smuggle it 
out of the town. Nathanael found a carter who was 
going his way, and induced the man to hide the mus- 
ket under the straw in the bottom of the wagon. He 
himself mounted to the seat beside the carter and 
rode there, looking so peaceful in his drab coat and 
Quaker hat that no one thought of stopping or ques- 
tioning him. Safely they passed the British soldiers, 
Nathanael nodding to them in friendly fashion. 
The cart rattled and bumped on its way. Massa- 
chusetts was left behind; the borders of Rhode Is- 
land were passed. Only then did Nathanael dare 
to draw out the musket from its hiding-place, ex- 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 125 

amine it with joy, and feel himself at last a real 
soldier. 

In 1775, with the first shots fired at Lexington, the 
struggle for independence began. Then drums were 
beat and flags unfurled. Through all the land 
sounded the tread of marching feet. Washington's 
army lay at Boston, and it was to join him there that 
the troops were marching. Not the last to set out 
were the Kentish Guards. They also were eager to 
bear their part in the struggle for freedom, and of 
them all none was more eager than the Quaker soldier 
Nathanael Greene. 

But the Guards were to meet with a great disap- 
pointment: they had hardly reached the borders 
of Rhode Island when they received a message from 
the Governor telling them to come back. This 
Governor, a Tory, declared that not with his consent 
should a single shot be fired against the British forces. 

The Guards complained bitterly about this order. 
There was even talk of disobeying the Governor 
and going on to Boston in spite of his commands. 
That was what Greene urged them to do. But in 
the end they decided on obedience, and turned back 
toward home. 

Four men alone refused to turn back; these were 
Nathanael Greene, his brother, and two trusty 
friends. These four men took horse and hurried on 
toward Boston. Hard and fast they gaUoped. 
They hardly took time to eat or sleep, and as soon 
as they reached the town they made haste to offer 
their services to the Commander-in-chief. He should 
know that four Rhode Island men, at least, were 
willing to fight for freedom. 

But after all there were other patriots in the little 



126 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

state besides these four men. Not long after the 
return of the Kentish Guards other troops were 
raised, who took the name of the Army of Observa- 
tion. This little army stood ready to join Washing- 
ton at any time, whether the Governor should give 
his consent or not. Nathanael Greene was chosen to 
command them, with the title of Brigadier-General. 

As soon as Greene heard he was appointed com- 
mander he returned to Rhode Island and set about 
drilling the troops. The soldiers were perfectly raw 
and untrained, and he himself knew but little more 
than they, but he worked so hard training and dis- 
cipUning them that they became almost the best 
troops in the whole army. Washington said of 
them; "They are under better government than any 
around Boston"; and his miUtary secretary wrote 
that Greene's command was "the best disciplined 
and appointed m the whole American army." 

Washington and Greene soon became close friends. 
Washington depended on Greene's judgment and 
good sense, and Greene thought the Commander-in- 
chief the greatest and wisest of men. He would ac- 
cept criticism and reproof from him as he would 
from no one else, for Greene always had a hot and 
unruly temper in spite of his Quaker training that 
made for peace. 

This friendship between the Commander-in-chief 
and Greene made some of the other officers very 
jealous. They criticised Greene bitterly for many 
things he did and said, but it was almost always 
their jealousy that caused the criticisms. When the 
matter was examined it was generally found that 
Nathanael had been in the right. 

In the winter of 1778-79 our army lay in camp at 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 127 

Valley Forge. The sufferings of the soldiers through 
that winter were very great. They were poorl}' 
paid or not paid at all. They had not enough food. 
Their clothing fell into rags and their bare feet bled 
on the frozen ground. Their only beds were the 
earthen floors of their huts, until Washington or- 
dered the farmers around to thrash out their grain 
and give the straw to the soldiers, and then they used 
this straw for beds. What the farmers would not 
do was to give the soldiers the grain and livestock 
they so sorely needed. The Americans were too 
poor to pay for the things, so the farmers preferred to 
sell them to the British, who gave them good money 
in return. 

The condition of the army was miserable indeed, 
and at last Washington urged Greene to take the 
position of commissary-general. He felt Greene 
might perhaps do more to help them than any one 
else. It is the duty of a commissary to supply the 
troops with necessary food and clothing, and to see 
that they have arms and ammunition. Greene was 
very unwilling to give up his position as a field 
ofhcer, and to take up these new duties. When at 
last he agreed it was only his love for Washington that 
made him consent. 

With Greene as commissary the condition of the 
army became somewhat better, though there was 
still a great deal of suffering. He begged for help 
from the public and from private people. He urged 
Congress to vote the army money, supplies, and 
clothing; but Congress could do little. The whole 
country was poor, and there were many demands 
for public money. 

At last the soldiers were given permission to forage 



128 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

anywhere within seventy miles of Valley Forge, 
and take any food and livestock they could find. 
This frightened the farmers. They were afraid 
they would lose everything they had. They carried 
their possessions away to swamps and lonely places 
in the woods and hid them there. 

Many of these hiding-places were found by the 
soldiers, however. Sometimes they would find a 
bag of meal hidden away in a hollow log, or a coop 
full of chickens in a deep thicket, or a cow or a pig. 
Then there would be great rejoicing in the camp. 

No one was so clever at finding things as General 
Greene. Sometimes it almost seemed as though he 
could smell the meal where it lay hidden, or hear 
from miles away the cluck of a hen or the munching 
of a cow. 

Mrs. Greene spent a great deal of time in the camp 
with her husband. Greene had never lost his love 
of dancing. Several times he gave dancing parties 
at his headquarters, to which he invited the officers 
and their wives. At one of these "hops" Washing- 
ton was Mrs. Greene's partner, and it is said that 
they danced together for three hours without stop- 
ping. General Greene wrote of it afterward as " on the 
whole, quite a gay little frisk." 

Greene finally gave up his position as commissary, 
but when he did so the army was already in better 
condition. The hardest time was passed. His en- 
emies accused him of having made money while he 
was in charge of the supplies, but the fact was that 
when he gave up the position he was poorer than 
when he took it; part of what had been spent for 
the soldiers had been taken from his own private 
means. 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 129 

Soon after he gave up his position as commissary- 
general he was appointed to the command of the 
army in the South, in the place of General Gates, 
who had been commanding it. It was in this cam- 
paign that Greene won his greatest fame, a fame that 
is thought by some to be even greater than that of 
Washington himself. 

The condition of the American army in the South 
was very miserable. The British, under Cornwallis, 
were in possession of both South Carolina and 
Georgia. The most of the people in those states 
were Tories. They refused to supply our troops with 
food. The starving soldiers stole from the fields 
and orchards whenever they could, but the corn was 
green and the fruit not ripe. For weeks they had 
nothing but this green corn and fruit to eat. They 
were sick. Their clothing was in rags, and they were 
so discouraged that they felt there was nothing but 
defeat before them. 

But Greene soon changed all this. His experience 
as a commissary at Valley Forge served him well. 
He managed to get food where there had seemed to 
be none before. He got them clothing and fresh 
ammunition. Best of all, he filled them with hope. 
Here was a commander, they felt, to lead them on to 
success, instead of the endless defeats they had 
suffered under Gates. Once more they laughed and 
joked as they sat around the campfires and talked 
of the victories they were to win. 

But the worst thing about the Southern army was 
its lack of discipline. Greene found that the soldiers 
had been in the habit of leaving camp almost when- 
ever they chose and without permission. They 
would go off to visit their families and friends, and 



I30 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

sometimes stay away for days. He determined to 
put a stop to this at once and for always. He gave 
notice that the first man caught deserting in this 
way would be put to death. 

It was not long before a man was brought before 
him who had been seen slipping off without leave. 
Greene gave orders for the troops to be turned out; 
the deserter was brought before them and shot there 
in the sight of all. This example of how deserters 
were to be punished made a deep impression on the 
soldiers, and at once put an end to the deserting, as 
Greene had intended it should. 

Both the discipline and the health of his troops 
had now greatly improved, but Greene realized that 
his forces were not strong enough for him to risk an 
open engagement with Cornwallis. He had not 
enough men. But though he was weak in the num- 
ber of private soldiers, he was fortunate in having 
with him a number of very brilliant officers: Morgan, 
Campbell, Sumpter, Marion, Pickens, Lee, Howard 
Williams, William Washington — all these were very 
unusual men. They knew the country well, they 
could understand his plans, and were able to carry 
them out. 

Though the British were strong in the number of 
their men, they had comparatively few officers, and 
those few were not as good as Greene's. Greene 
decided to separate his forces into a number of small 
divisions, and put each division under an officer 
that he could absolutely depend on. With these 
divisions he would attack in several different places 
— places far apart. To meet these attacks Corn- 
wallis would be obliged to separate his forces into a 
number of divisions also, and send them off in differ- 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 131 

ent directions. If these divisions had poor officers 
to command them they would be more apt to be 
defeated than if they were all kept together, where 
Cornwallis himself could direct their movements. 

This plan was a brilliant piece of generalship on 
the part of Greene, and it succeeded even as well as 
he had hoped. The numbers of the British counted 
for Uttle when poorly managed by their officers. 

At the battle of the Cowpens the British met with 
one of the severest defeats of the whole campaign. 
The Americans, under Morgan, took more than 
live hundred of them prisoners. Of these, twenty- 
three were officers. More than a hundred British 
were killed, while the Americans lost, all told, only 
seventy men. 

This victory of Morgan's was a great blow to 
Cornwallis. His first idea now was to pursue Mor- 
gan with the main body of his army, and get back the 
prisoners who had been taken. But Greene guessed 
that this would be the enemy's next move. It was 
exactly what he wished Cornwallis to do. It would 
give to him the chance of drawing the British away 
from Georgia and South Carolina, into states that 
were not so friendly to them. 

Sending the prisoners ahead, Greene with all 
his forces retreated north toward Virginia, the Brit- 
ish pursuing hotl}' after him. Greene was very anx- 
ious not to be caught and forced to light. He 
pushed his troops on so fast that they were scarcely 
given time to sleep, and had only one meal a day. 
x\ll through the long, bright hours and on into the 
night they marched and marched away toward the 
North. Sometimes the way lay through the deep 
woods or treacherous swamps; sometimes along high- 



132 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

ways and past farmhouses where the people hur- 
ried to the fences to see the ragged, dusty troops 
march past. Weary and footsore as the soldiers 
were, they were not discouraged. They joked and 
laughed on their way, and waved their battered 
caps to the country people as they passed the houses. 

Late at night a halt would be called. Muskets 
would be thrown aside, and the weary soldiers 
would drop down where they stood and fall into a 
deep sleep. A few hours later they would be aroused 
by the bugles. Sometimes they had to be awakened 
by the officers who went about among them shaking 
them by their shoulders and forcing them to their 
feet. Still half asleep they would stumble to their 
feet and the march would begin again, broken at 
noon by a hasty meal that they swallowed down with 
ravenous hunger. 

And all the while, close at their heels, came the 
British, hot to overtake them and force them into an 
open engagement. At one place it seemed as 
though the Americans must certainly be overtaken. 
They had reached the shore of the Catawba River 
and there was some difficulty in getting across. 
While the last of them were still in the boats on the 
river the British reached the bank they had just 
left, and made ready to embark. 

Then suddenly the sky above them darkened; the 
wind rose, almost swamping the boats; there was a 
crash of thunder, and almost immediately the 
heavens seemed to open, and the rain poured down 
in a torrent. The men in the boats were half 
drowned, but they managed to reach the shore. 
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased, 
but in that little while the river had risen to a foam- 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 133 

ing torrent. It would no longer be possible to cross 
it until it had gone down. 

The British commanders were filled with helpless 
rage. They had thought that at last they were on 
the point of overtaking the Americans, but this de- 
lay would give them a fresh start. And, indeed, by 
the time Cornwallis could cross the river Greene was 
again in advance, and a few days later he crossed 
the Dan into Virginia, where he was safe. 

Now at last the weary American troops could rest 
for a time and eat and sleep, for Virginia was friendly 
territory. The gaunt and weary soldiers grew strong 
on the good fare. They were joined by reinforce- 
ments and their ammunition was replenished. 

It was now the British who were in a dangerous 
position. They had been drawn away from the 
states that were friendly to them and were among 
enemies. The men were worn out with their forced 
marches, and for them there were no reinforce- 
ments. 

It was on the 13 th of February that Greene's 
forces had crossed the Dan into Virginia. Ten days 
afterward he brought his troops, rested and refreshed, 
back into North Carolina again. But he did not 
settle them in one place. Instead, he changed his 
place of encampment at least twice in every twenty- 
four hours, and kept the British constantly anxious 
and harassed because they never knew where the 
Americans were nor when they might make an at- 
tack. Greene, on the other hand, was never igno- 
rant for even three hours of exactly where the British 
were. 

Cornwallis began to see that unless he had some 
sudden stroke of good fortune he was doomed to 



134 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

defeat. He longed to meet the Americans in open 
battle before his forces grew any weaker, but he 
was obliged to wait for Greene's own choice of time 
and place. 

The engagement between the two forces at last 
took place at Guilford Courthouse. It was one of 
the fiercest of all the battles in the War for Indepen- 
dence. On both sides there were heavy losses, but 
the British fought with the fury of desperate men, 
and the Americans were at last driven back and 
forced to retreat. 

But their seeming defeat was really better than a 
victory for the Americans. The British had lost 
so many men and were so weakened that they dared 
not stay where they were, nor did they dare to try to 
return to South Carolina. Cornwallis gave up all 
possession of the two southern states he had held and 
that he had hoped to keep out of the Union. Greene 
went north and rejoined Washington. 

South Carolina and Georgia were so grateful to 
Greene for what he had done in freeing them from the 
British that they each presented him with a valuable 
tract of land. 

For two years after the close of the war General 
Greene lived in Rhode Island, doing all he could to 
bring about a friendly feeling between the Whigs 
and Tories, for they were stiU ver}' bitter toward 
each other. Only time, however, could quiet down 
this feeling between them and bring peace to the 
country. 

At the end of two years Greene took his family 
down to the beautiful place near Savannah that 
Georgia had given to him. Here he hoped to live 
happily and see his children grow up about him. 



A FAMOUS GENERAL 



135 



But it was only for a very short time that he enjoyed 
it. One hot day, as he was crossing the garden, he 
was suddenly overcome by the heat of the sun, and 
fell down, insensible. 

He was carried to the house, doctors were sent for, 
and everything possible was done to save him. But 
it was all of no use, and two days later he died. 

The news of his death filled the whole country with 
mourning. At Savannah the bells of the city were 
tolled. Shops were closed, all business stopped, and 
the flags, even those on the ships in the harbor, were 
lowered to half-mast. 

To Washington the blow was indeed a heavy one. 
Greene had been his close and dear friend. He had 
loved and trusted him as he loved and trusted few 
others. The grief of Greene's family was bitter, 
but perhaps Washington, even more than they, had 
been able to appreciate the wisdom, the bravery, 
and the true patriotism of the son of the Warwick 
blacksmith. 




Still Half Asleep, They Would Stumble to Their Feet and the March Would Begin Again 



NOTES 

1. His interest was first aroused by his making the acquaintance of a 
lad named Giles, who was a student at Rhode Island College, now Brown 
University. 

2. Dr. Stiles was himself a Quaker. Later on he visited Friend Greene 
at Warwick, and it was he who induced the stern old Quaker to allow his 
son to study Latin and mathematics under a master. 

3. Greene always seemed to feel a sort of awe toward those who had 
the advantages of an early education. He always felt his own lack of it 
very bitterly. We find him, in one of his letters to his wnfe, urging her to 
be careful about her spelling. 

4. Greene finally gave up the position in a fit of exasperation at Con- 
gress because they would do so little and were so slow in voting supplies for 
the army. 




Then They Sprang to Their Feet with a Yell and Poured 
a Fierce Volley in Among the Redcoats 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

The Battle Of Rhode 

Island Was Fought 




The People on the Island Hurried to the Cliffs 

IT WAS the year 1776, and the war with England 
had begun. Along the roads sounded the rumble 
of artillery and the tramp of armed troops. 

In December a squadron of British vessels sailed 
into Newport Harbor; the troops landed and took 
possession of the town. 

On the mainland people were terrified lest the 
British should come there, too. Those living near 
the coast were advised to send their women and 
children back into the country for safety, and their 
furniture and cattle as well. For a time the roads 
were almost blocked with loaded carts, and with 
droves of cattle and flocks of sheep. The militia 
armed and prepared to defend their state, and besides 
the militia enough volunteers enlisted to make a 
full regiment themselves. 

Messengers were hurriedly sent to the other New 
England States to ask for aid, and Massachusetts 
and Connecticut almost at once sent troops. It was 
indeed very important for all of New England that 
Rhode Island should be protected. Rhode Island 
had sixty miles of coastline, at any point of which 
the British might land unless there were troops to 
defend it, and her shores were like an open door to 
the rest of the country. 

In 1777 General Spencer was in command of the 
Rhode Island forces, and in October of that year he 

141 



142 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

determined to try to drive the British from Newport 
and the island. This plan was highly approved by 
Congress. A force of about 9,000 troops was gath- 
ered together to make the attack. The British had 
scarcely 4,000, but their position was very strong. 

The Americans would be obliged to cross to the 
island in boats. The time for this was decided on; 
the troops were ready, and all the preparations 
seemed to have been made, but when the time came 
for the soldiers to embark it was found there were 
not enough boats to carry them across. This was 
very discouraging. The expedition had to be put 
off. A heavy storm came up and swept the coast, 
and the men began to desert. Soon the American 
forces were so weakened that all plans for crossing 
to the island were given up. 

General Spencer was severely blamed for this 
failure, and the feeling against him was so strong 
that in December he gave up his command. 

His place was taken by Major John Sullivan. ^ 

Sullivan was a brave and daring officer, and a close 
friend of both Washington and Nathanael Greene. 

Soon after he took command^ he began to plan to 
carry out the attack on the British that Spencer had 
given up. He applied to Congress for more troops, 
and in June all of the Rhode Island troops that were 
in the Continental Army were sent back to their 
own state. 

The British had learned of Sullivan's plans, and de- 
termined to do what they could to interrupt them. 
An expedition was sent out to destroy some boats 
that were in the Kickemuit River. After destroying 
the boats the enemy attacked the towns of Warren 
and Bristol. Nineteen l^uildings in Bristol were 



THE BATTLE OF RHODE ISLAND 143 

burned, houses were looted, and a number of people 
were carried off as prisoners. The British took from 
the houses not only arms, provisions, and furniture, 
but necklaces, jewels, aprons, and handkerchiefs — 
anything that seemed to them of value. Ladies 
were forced to draw the rings from their fmgers and 
hand them over to the soldiers. Even the buckles 
were torn from their shoes and carried off. The 
soldiers afterward went about the Newport streets 
offering the things for sale to any one who would 
buy them. The prisoners who were taken were 
treated with such cruelty that Sullivan wrote a 
letter of bitter reproach to the British General Pigot. 
In his letter he declared that the whole expedition 
had been "darkened with savage cruelty, and stained 
with indelible disgrace." 

At this time the French were our allies.^ Lafay- 
ette had come over to join the American army and 
fight in the cause of liberty. A French fleet under 
the command of the Comte D'Estaing had been sent 
to help us. It had been lying in the neighborhood of 
New York, but in July it set sail for Rhode Island^ 
to aid the American forces there. This was good 
news for SuUivan. There were troops on board who 
would strengthen his forces on land, and the vessels 
could protect him on the water-side. 

The British, on the other hand, heard the news 
with great anxiety. They strengthened still further 
the defences they had on the island. Forts were 
rebuilt and earthworks thrown up, and reinforce- 
ments were sent that raised the number of troops on 
the island to almost 7,000. Sullivan had only 1,600, 
but the number was growing. Lafayette, with two 
brigades, was sent to join him. Patriots from Bris- 



144 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

tol, Warren, and Providence volunteered and came 
marching to the front. Artillery rumbled heavily 
along the roads, raising a cloud of dust. Through the 
dust bayonets glistened in the sunlight as the troops 
swung past to the sound of fife and drum. 

A regiment of negroes was raised, the first black 
regiment that was ever formed in America. Later 
they were to show how fiercely and faithfully they 
could fight. They were Rhode Island slaves, but as 
soon as they enlisted they were set free. These 
troops were raised and commanded by a Rhode Is- 
land man, James M. Varnum. 

On July 29th a number of sail were sighted on 
the horizon toward the southeast. The people on the 
island hurried to the cliffs on the seaward side, and 
stood watching eagerly the approach of the vessels. 
It was impossible, however, to tell what vessels they 
were even when they came near, for they showed 
no flags. They might be either British or French. 

By one o'clock the fleet had reached the mouth of 
the main channel, just off Point Judith, and here 
they dropped their sails and came to anchor. It was 
a magnificent sight as the great vessels lay there, 
rocking gently to the long swell of the water. There 
were twelve ships of the line, four frigates, and a 
corvette. Suddenly there was a flutter of white at 
the mastheads. The flags were being run up. A 
moment later they lifted in the wind, and aU could 
see the Three Lihes of France on their white ground. 
It was the French fleet, our allies, and the hearts of 
the Americans rose high with hope as they saw those 
flags of the friendly nation. 

The day after the arrival of the fleet SuUivan went 
to the flagship to talk over the plan of attack with 



THE BATTLE OF RHODE ISLAND 145 

D'Estaing. It was decided to make the attack as 
soon as possible. To wait would only be to give the 
British a chance to strengthen their position still 
further. The American forces were to cross from 
Tiverton to the north end of the island. The 
French troops'* were to land on Conanicut Island 
and cross from there. Meanwhile, two ships of the 
line, two frigates, and the corvette were to take up 
such a position as to keep the British ships that were 
in the harbor from escaping. 

The movements of the French fleet were carefully 
watched by the British. They soon realized that 
their vessels were being shut in by the French, and 
rather than run the risk of having them captured 
they destroyed them. Three vessels that were in 
Sakonnet River were blown up. Four frigates and a 
corvette were run up on the beach of Rhode Island 
and burned. Others were burned in the harbor, 
and their hulks were sunk^ there so as to obstruct 
navigation. 

The loth of August was the day set for the 
French and Americans to land on the island. Sulli- 
van's forces had grown until now he had under him 
almost 10,000 troops, but the most of these were raw 
and untried, and had never been in battle before. 
Almost all of the British were veterans. However, 
the French, too, were tried troops, and Sullivan 
counted largely on them. He was full of hopes 
of success. 

But a bitter disappointment awaited him. The 
French troops were landed on Conanicut as he and 
D'Estaing had agreed, but hardly had this been 
done when a British fleet was sighted down the bay. 
D'Estaing at once decided to reembark his men and 



146 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

sail down to meet the enemy and give battle. 
His troops were ordered back to the vessels, and as 
soon as they were on board he set sail. Sullivan 
knew nothing of this sudden change of plan. He 
was still counting on his allies, when, looking out 
over the water, he saw with amazement that the 
French fleet was disappearing in the distance. 

The disappointment was so great that a feeling 
of discouragement spread through the whole army. 
Men and officers alike began to doubt whether the 
French were faithful to them. Lafayette was deeply 
mortified. 

But in spite of the desertion of the fleet Sullivan 
determined to carry out his attack. But on the 
1 2 th of August a great storm arose that swept both 
land and sea. The wind blew a hurricane, and the 
rain fell in torrents. Arms and ammunition were 
made useless. It would have been impossible even 
for troops to march in such a storm. Tents were 
blow^n down or carried away by the wind. The 
soldiers were left without shelter. They crouched 
in the corners of fences or against rocks, trying in 
vain to protect themselves. Many died from the 
exposure. 

On the sea the fleets were scattered almost before 
their battle had begun. Masts were broken and 
rigging torn away. 

By the 1 5th the storm had passed, and during that 
day the French fleet again came in sight and took up 
the position they had held before. Sullivan hoped 
that now, at last, they would carry out their agree- 
ment. Instead D'Estaing sent him a message that 
he would have to sail to Boston to have his ves- 
sels repaired.® It was in vain that Sullivan urged 



THE BATTLE OF RHODE ISLAND 147 

and entreated him to remain. Lafayette added his 
entreaties to Sullivan's, but the French admiral 
was determined to go to Boston. He would promise 
nothing except that he would return as soon as possi- 
ble, and with despair Sullivan saw the sails set and 
the whole fleet go sweeping out past the British bat- 
teries and away toward the north. 

The second desertion by the French had an even 
worse effect on the American forces than the first. 
They began to desert in large numbers. Almost 
3,000 of them left and went back to the main- 
land, and SuUi van's force of 10,000 was reduced to 
7,000. 

He still held a place on the island, but with such 
a weakened army he dared not stay so near the 
enemy, and he retreated to the fortified hills at the 
north. He hoped it would not be long before the 
fleet returned, but meanwhile his heavy stores and 
baggage were sent to the rear where it would be easy 
to transport them to the mainland if this proved 
necessary. 

By the 28th the last of the heavy baggage was 
carried to the rear. All was ready for a retreat, but 
still Sullivan waited, hoping each day that the 
French fleet would return, but each day he was 
disappointed. 

On the 28th Lafayette started for Boston to try 
to hasten the return of the fleet. Hr crossed to the 
mainland and then made the journey on horseback. 
He was so eager to return that he made the whole 
journey (a distance of almost seventy miles) in less 
than fourteen hours. 

The British had learned, with fresh hope, that 
Sullivan was making ready to retreat to the main- 



148 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

land. They determined to make an attack at once, 
and before his forces could leave the island. 

Very early, almost with the dawning of the 29th, 
the British forces were on the march, and at nine 
their cannon opened fire on the American outworks. 
The heavy booming seemed to shake the island and 
could be heard far over on the mainland. 

There were two principal highways along the 
island, one to the east and one to the west. Along 
these roads the British columns moved to the attack. 

The Americans had made ready to meet them. 

Two light corps had been sent out, one down the 
east road, and one down the west road, to meet the 
advance of the enemy. 

A number of pickets were stationed at a crossroad 
that branched off from the east road. Here a field 
had a stone wall around it.^ The order for these 
pickets was to lie concealed behind the wall until the 
British were close upon them, and then to fire on 
them and retreat. This order was well carried out. 

The light corps, when attacked, fell back to the 
main body of the army. The order to do this was 
brought them by a regiment that Sullivan sent out 
to protect their retreat. 

The pickets still crouched concealed behind the 
stone wall. The field lay still and peaceful in the 
sunlight. For a time the pickets heard nothing but 
the distant roar of the cannon, and the nearer volleys 
of artillery. The American troops had fallen back. 
Then from down the east road came the steady tramp 
of the British as they came swinging on, their bayo- 
nets glittering in the sunlight. 

When they reached the crossroad there was a 
sharp command from their officer, and the Twenty- 



THE BATTLE OF RHODE ISLAND 149 

second Regiment divided. One half of it continued 
along the main road, the other turned off toward the 
field where the Americans were concealed. Pickets 
still crouched there, gripping their guns and scarcely 
breathing. Not until the British were abreast of 
them did they move. Then they sprang to their 
feet with a yell, and poured a fierce volley in among 
the redcoats. 

The British were so utterly unprepared that they 
made no attempt to return the fire. ^Many of them 
had fallen and lay groaning in the dust of the road. 
Before those who were unhurt could recover, the 
Americans had reloaded, and had again poured a 
storm of bullets in among the enemy. Almost one 
quarter of the whole Twenty-second Regiment lay 
there, dead or dying. 

Two troops of Hessians hurried on to the support 
of the British, but they arrived too late. The Amer- 
icans had already gone. 

They had retreated to the main army without the 
loss of a single man. 

Along the west road the fighting had been hot 
and furious. Twice the British and Hessians had 
charged upon the American regiments, and twice 
they had been driven back. A third attack might 
have had a different ending, for the American forces 
were almost exhausted, but two fresh battalions were 
sent forward by Sullivan and saved the day for them. 

Varnum's regiment of negroes had been posted 
in a valley. It was against these that the Hessians 
made their fiercest attack. Three times they charged 
down the hill, and three times they were driven back. 
Though many of the blacks were killed or wounded, 
they had no thought of quitting their position. But 



ISO ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

the Hessians had suffered far more terribly. So 
many of them were killed, indeed, that the next day 
their officer refused to lead them. He was afraid 
they would shoot him for making them lose so many 
men. The whole battle had been a slaughter for 
the British forces. At one place as many as sixty 
Hessians were found lying dead in a heap together. 

The British were forced to fall back, and the 
Americans pursued them hotly almost up to their 
fortifications. One of their batteries on Quaker 
Hill was captured. 

Sullivan was very anxious to carry on his attack 
still further, but his men were too exhausted. For 
thirty-six hours they had been on the march, or 
lighting and working, without a moment to rest or 
eat. He was obliged to fall back to his camp and 
allow his troops some time for food and sleep. 

On the 30th Lafayette returned from Boston, ex- 
hausted from his journey. He was bitterly dis- 
appointed when he found the battle had been fought 
while he was away, and a victory won. Through all 
that day there was some firing between the two 
forces, but no regular attack by either side. 

Lafayette had brought a letter to Sullivan from 
the French admiral. In this letter D'Estaing told 
Sullivan that his fleet was still undergoing repairs, 
and that he would not be able to return for some time. 
Sullivan also, that same day, received a letter from 
Washington warning him that the British fleet, 
under Lord Howe, had sailed for Rhode Island, 
and might arrive there at any time. 

This was serious news for Sullivan. If the British 
fleet arrived while he was still on the island and the 
land forces again attacked him, it would mean an 



THE BATTLE OF RHODE ISLAND 151 

utter defeat of his forces, and a heav^- loss. It was 
now very necessary for him to retreat to the main- 
land as quickly as possible. 

To deceive the British, and make them think he 
still meant to hold his position, he had a number of 
tents brought forward and set up where the British 
could see them. He also set his men to work forti- 
fying the camp. While this was going on at the 
front his stores and baggage were being quietly 
sent down to the river, Lafayette had missed the 
battle, but now he could do good service in helping 
on the withdrawal. 

There was, fortunately, no moon that night. As 
soon as it was dark the Americans were on the move. 
In perfect silence troop after troop marched down to 
the river and embarked, and were carried over to the 
mainland. What was left of the stores and baggage 
were taken with them. It was a masterly retreat. 
All was done in perfect order, in perfect silence, and 
without a single mishap. 

All night long the British sentries paced back and 
forth, giving the sign and countersign, and never 
once did they guess that the enemy they were guard- 
ing against had left the island; that their fortifica- 
tions lay empty and deserted. Only as the morn- 
ing light spread palely over the island did the British 
see that no one was left in the American camp. The 
enemy they had still hoped to capture had escaped 
them. They still held the island, indeed — in that 
far Sullivan had failed — but their forces had suf- 
fered a heavy defeat. They had lost 1,023 ^^^ ^^ 
the battle, while the loss of the Americans was only 
211. 

Congress passed a vote of thanks to Sullivan for 



152 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

the way he had managed the campaign. It also 
passed a resolution in which it said his retreat had 
been ''prudent, timely, and well conducted." It 
was, indeed, a brilliant end to a brilliant victory, and 
Lafayette declared the Battle of Rhode Island to be 
"the best-fought action of the war." 




The British In Newport 



NOTES 

1 . The father and mother of General SulUvan were Irish. They came 
to this country as emigrants in 1723. Their third son, John (General 
Sullivan), was born at Bermck, Maine, the 17th of February, 1740. 

2. General SuUi van's headquarters were at Providence. The principal 
part of the Continental troops that were under his command were posted 
in this town. 

3. "Early in this year (1778) the Americans were inspired with fresh 
hope, and animated by intelligence of the conclusion of treaties of friend- 
ship and commence an alliance with the King of France. This was an 
event to which they had been anxiously looking as the only thing re- 
quired to give complete triumph to their cause." — "The Library of 
American Biography." 

4. D'Estaing had first planned to enter the harbor of New York and at- 
tack the British fleet that was lying there, but he was told the water was 
not deep enough for his largest vessels. He was therefore obUged to give 
up his plan, and turned his attention to Rhode Island instead. The 
French troops numbered 4,000. 

5. By the sinking and destroying of these vessels the British lost 212 



6. D'Estaing explained that these were his orders, that m case of any 
disaster to his vessels he was to sail at once to Boston Harbor for repairs. 

7. Near the Gibbs farm. The Union Meeting-house now stands at the 
southeast angle of this field. 




Stuart Began upon the President's Portrait 



How, Once Upon A Time, 
A Rhode Island Boy 
Became A Famous 
Painter 




Gilbert and His Sister 



UPON the banks of the Pettaquamscutt River, 
in North Kingstown, there stands an old 
shingled house with a "hip" roof. It is 
shaded by great willow trees, and so close to the river 
that you can see the reflection of it in the smoothly 
flowing water. Within are low-ceilinged rooms, broad 
fireplaces, and quaint, narrow stairways. 

It was in the northeast chamber of this house that 
a baby boy was born in December of the year 1755. 

He was a very welcome little baby. His father 
and mother had already had two children, a boy and 
a girl, but of these two the boy had died, and only the 
girl was left. 

Gilbert Stuart was the name of the father, and 
Gilbert Stuart this second little son was christened a 
few months later. He was a strong, large, sturdy 
child, and his parents were very proud of him. 

As he grew older he became rather spoiled and 
wilful, for his mother could refuse him nothing: his 
father indulged him almost as much as his mother 
did, and his little sister was never tired of playing 
with him and keeping him amused. 

Mr. Stuart was a snufT manufacturer. His snufl" 
miU stood close to the river and only a little distance 
from the house. At that time a great deal of snufl 

157 



158 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

was used in New England, and large orders for it 
were sent over to Scotland. Mr. Stuart, who was a 
Scotchman, had come to America hoping to make a 
fortune by grinding snuff here. But for some reason 
his business was not a success. He lost money in- 
stead of making it. After a while he and his family 
had Httle to depend on, except some money that 
Mrs. Stuart had inherited from her father. Luckily 
this was enough to support them all, but they were 
obliged to be very economical: there was not a dollar 
to waste. 

When Gilbert was about twelve years old Mr. 
Stuart decided to remove to Ne\vport. His mill was 
no longer of value to him, and he wished to be 
where there were schools for his children. 

The children were delighted at the thought of this 
change. It seemed to them it would be great fun to 
live in a town where there were other boys and girls. 
They felt very little regret over leaving the softly 
flowing river, the trees and mill, and the old gambrel- 
roofed house where they had been born. 

Very soon after the family settled in Newport 
Gilbert was entered as a pupil at a boys' school kept 
by the Rev. George Bissett. So far his sister had 
been almost his only playmate and she had always 
been ready to give way to him in everything; now 
he was to be with other boys who had their own 
games and sports, and were, perhaps, just as fond of 
having their own way as he was. It might have been 
supposed that at first he would have had a hard 
time among these new playmates, but instead he 
became very popular. He was so clever, so strong 
and handsome, and so fond of mischief that they were 
quite ready to allow him to be their leader. 



A FAMOUS PAINTER 159 

He was not fond of study, but he learned quickly 
and easily, and generally stood well in his classes, 
and Mr. Bissett forgave him many a piece of mischief 
that he might not have forgiven to a duller or less 
hkable boy. 

One study there was, however, that Gilbert cared 
for almost as much as he did for his sports and games, 
and that was his drawing. At home he was never 
happier than when he had a piece of crayon or char- 
coal in his hand and was making pictures. 

One day Dr. John Hunter came to the house to see 
Mrs. Stuart, who was not very well. He was much 
interested in some drawings of animals that Gilbert 
had just finished. 

"Some day you must come to my house, my lad," 
he said, "and see two Spanish dogs I have." 

Gilbert was delighted with this invitation and 
readily agreed to go. The time set for this visit was 
the next election day, as that would be a holiday. 

When election day came Gilbert started off bright 
and early for his visit. Dr. Hunter showed him the 
dogs, and then put before him a canvas, palette, 
brushes, and colors. "Now, my boy, let me see what 
sort of a picture you can make of my dogs," he said. 

Gilbert set about the work, and the picture was 
such a success that the doctor was delighted. 
This painting of Dr. Hunter's dogs was the first oil 
painting that young Stuart ever attempted. He was 
then about thirteen years old. 

The next year he painted the portraits of Mrs. 
Christian Bannister and John Bannister, and the 
Bannisters were so pleased with them that they had 
them framed, and they now hang in the Redwood 
Library at Newport. 



i6o ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Stuart's drawing master at this time was Mr. Cos- 
mos Alexander. Mr. Alexander was very proud of 
his pupil's work, and often declared that some day 
the boy would become famous, and that it was a 
great pity he could not study abroad. Mr. Alex- 
ander was a Scotchman, and after he had been in this 
country for some years he decided to return to 
Scotland. He was very anxious to take his pu- 
pil with him, and Gilbert was equally eager to go. 
He was at this time a young man of eighteen, hand- 
some, tall, well built, and with a frank and charming 
manner that won the liking of every one who met 
him. 

His parents were very unwilling, at first, to ha\ e 
him go so far from them, but Gilbert urged and 
pleaded so eagerly that at last they gave theii- 
consent. 

Mrs. Stuart wept bitterly over parting with her 
son, but the young man was full of high hopes. He 
meant to make a name for himself and to win fame 
and money before he returned. 

He was away for two years. Of what happened 
in those two years his parents knew very little. 
Gilbert was never one to write or talk of disagreeable 
things if he could help it, but very unhappy times 
he must have had in the months he was away, for one 
day he suddenly appeared at home, thin, ragged, and 
forlorn. 

His parents could hardly believe their eyes when he 
walked in. They had thought he was still in Scot- 
land. They questioned him as to what had hap- 
pened, and why he had returned so suddenly, but 
they could learn little from him. He told them Mr. 
Alexander had died, leaving him in the care of a 



A FAMOUS PAINTER i6i 

friend; that he had wanted to come home but had 
had no money to pay for a passage, so had worked 
his way back on a colHer. More than this he would 
not tell them. 

But, whatever had happened, Mrs. Stuart was only 
too thankful to have her son at home again. His 
father for his part was pleased to see that the young 
man had learned at least one thing while he was 
away, and that was to work. A blacksmith was 
hired as a model, and young Stuart set to work 
eagerly, drawing, painting, scraping out what he had 
done if it was not good and painting it over again. 

Before long he again began to be talked about as a 
promising young artist. His uncle, Captain Joseph 
Anthony, decided to have him paint Mrs. Anthony 
and the children, and the portraits were such a suc- 
cess that Captain Anthony paid his nephew well for 
them. 

Stuart was delighted at having earned something 
at last, but the money was soon spent. Neither 
then nor at any other time did he seem to have any 
idea of saving or being economical. Whatever he 
earned was spent almost before he received it, and 
he did not seem to know how it had gone. 

There were many wealthy Jews in Newport at this 
time, and several of them ordered portraits from 
Stuart and paid him even more hberally than his 
uncle had. It seemed as though there were a fine 
opening for the young artist there in his own town. 

But now great events began to happen that 
changed all the plans Stuart had been making. It 
was the year 1775 and the country was in a turmoil. 
Drums were beaten, speeches made, and men were 
mustered in as soldiers. It was the beginning of the 



i62 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Revolutionary War, that was to make the American 
colonies into an independent country. But Gilbert 
had no taste for war. What he wanted was peace 
and quiet, that he might work undisturbed. 

Moreover, he needed to earn a living, and he soon 
found that people had now neither thoughts nor 
money to spend on having their portraits painted. 
They were busy with greater things. He determined 
to go abroad again, and not to return until these 
troublous times were over. So on June i6th, the 
very day before the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, 
he once more said good-bye to his family and set 
sail, but this time for England instead of Scotland. 

There was an artist living in London at this time, 
Sir Benjamin West, who had gone there from Phil- 
adelphia and had made himself famous b}' his paint- 
ings. It was the great ambition of most of the 
young American painters to study under West. 
So as soon as Gilbert landed in England he made his 
way at once to London, hoping to get an introduction 
to the great painter. 

But after he reached there, for some reason or 
other, he did not try to see West. Perhaps he 
was ashamed to go to him poor and ragged : for Stuart 
had again spent all his money. He was in actual 
poverty, without enough even to pay for food and 
clothing or for the garret where he lived. 

He was almost in despair, when chance threw a 
piece of good fortune in his way. He was passing 
a church one day when he heard a sound of 
music. He pushed open the door and went in and 
sat down in one of the pews. A number of young 
men were sitting in the front of the church and one 
after another they went to the organ and played 



A FAMOUS PAINTER 163 

something. Stuart soon found that the church 
needed an organist, and these young men were trying 
for the position. He, too, asked to be allowed to play, 
and he did so much better than any of the others 
that the judges at once chose him to be the organist. 
The salary was to be thirty pounds a year: that is 
about $150. Stuart was filled with joy over this 
lucky chance. He had been so absolutely without 
money that a hundred and fifty dollars seemed to 
him a fortune. He at once had a good meal and 
bought himself some clothes. Soon, however, he had 
spent almost all of the money that had been advanced 
to him, and had scarcely enough left to buy food to 
keep him from starving. 

But now he had another stroke of good fortune. 
An old friend of his, Dr. Waterhouse, came to live 
in London. He heard that Stuart was there and at 
once hunted him up. He was shocked to find the 
painter living in a miserable garret without enough 
to eat or wear, and in debt for the little he had. 

Dr. Waterhouse paid his debts, lent him some 
money, and made him move to a more comfortable 
place. He also managed to get for him some orders 
for portraits. 

It seemed as though all would now be well with 
the young painter, but instead of setting to work 
upon the orders he had received Stuart only idled 
away his time. Some of the work he put off from 
day to day. Some portraits he began and then laid 
aside because he was not satisfied with them. He 
seemed to prefer to borrow money from Waterhouse 
rather than earn it for himself. 

If it had been any one but Stuart who acted in this 
way his friend would, no doubt, have grown tired of 



1 64 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

helping him and have told him to shift for himself, 
but the painter was so gay, and charming, and tal- 
ented that all through his life his friends seemed 
willing to forgive him anything. 

It was not until two years after he reached Lon- 
don that Stuart made up his mind to go to see West. 
He dressed himself in a new suit and a fashionable 
overcoat, which he had just bought with some bor- 
rowed money, and made his way to the painter's 
house and asked to see him. 

Like every one else, West was charmed with 
the young Rhode Islander. After talking to him and 
examining his work. West readily agreed to take 
him as a pupil: and not only that, he even invited 
Stuart to come and live with him in his own house 
for as long as he would. ^ 

This was a great thing for Stuart. There was 
perhaps little that West could teach him, for his own 
style of painting was already better than that of his 
master, but he was forced to work more steadily now 
that he had some one over him, and through 
West he met some of the greatest artists and most 
famous men in London. It was by his master's 
advice, too, that he went to lectures given by Sir 
Joshua Reynolds. 

One of the most important picture exhibitions 
in London is that of the Royal Academy. It is the 
great ambition of every young artist to have a pic- 
ture hung in it. 

In 1777 Stuart was given an order to paint a por- 
trait of Mr. William Grant, a Scotchman. The first 
day that Mr. Grant came to pose for the picture it 
was very cold. He happened to say that it was much 
better weather for skating than for sitting. Stuart 



A FAMOUS PAINTER 165 

at once laid aside his palette and brushes and sug- 
gested that they should go out and skate on the 
Serpentine River. Mr. Grant agreed, and they 
started out together. The Scotchman was a good 
skater, but Stuart was a better. While they were 
out in the middle of the river the ice around them 
began to crack. The painter bade his companion 
take hold of his coat tails, and he would soon bring 
him safely to the shore. This he did. 

When, the next day, he began on the portrait he 
represented Mr. Grant as skating on the Serpentine. 
The picture was a great success. It was offered to 
the Royal Academy, and was at once accepted and 
hung in one of the best positions. Crowds gathered 
before it to look at it, and the young painter found 
himself famous. 

He now decided to have a house and studio of his 
own, and of this West greatly approved. When 
West bade his pupil good-bye he said: "Stuart, 
you have done well, very well; now all you have to 
do is go home and do better. ^^ 

The young painter's house soon became very popu- 
lar. He was so gay and amusing that people were 
always glad to come to see him, and besides that he 
was growing more and more famous. He had more 
orders than he could possibl}^ find time for, and he 
asked very high prices for his work. He spent his 
money as though there would never be any end to it, 
and he was so careless that often he did not know 
whether a picture had been paid for or not. 

When he was about thirty Stuart fell in love with 
Miss Charlotte Coates, the daughter of an English 
doctor. She was a beautiful girl, and she sang ex- 
tremelv well. Stuart himself was verv musical. 



i66 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

Though the painter was popular and famous, Miss 
Coates's family was very unwilling to have her marry 
him. They knew what a spendthrift he was, and 
feared that he might bring her to poverty in spite 
of the large sums of money he was making. 

However, she was in love with him and determined 
to marr\^ him, and the wedding took place on May 
lo, 1786. 

The young Mrs. Stuart was almost as fond of 
pleasure and gayety as her husband, and they gave 
so many fine entertainments, and spent money so 
freely, that it was not very long before they found they 
were in debt. Stuart's pictures were still famous, and 
the people still paid large sums for them, but the 
money was spent before it came in. 

The debts grew heavier and heavier, and at last 
the Stuarts decided to leave London and go to live 
in Dublin. They hoped to be able to live more 
cheaply there, where they would not have so many 
friends. 

But in Dublin it proved no easier to live cheaply 
than it had in London. They were soon in debt 
again, and people were dunning them for money. 
Stuart now wished to return to America and try his 
fortune there, but he was so poor he did not have 
the money to pay for the passage for himself and his 
wife. However, he found a sea captain who was 
willing to take them back in his ship in return for a 
portrait which Stuart was to paint for him. 

The Stuarts landed in New York, and took a 
house there instead of going back to Rhode Island. 
They soon became as popular in New York as they 
had been in London and Dublin; the most famous 
people in the city came to Stuart to have their por- 



A FAMOUS PAINTER 167 

traits painted, and he soon had all the work he could 
do. He began many portraits, however, that were 
never finished. If he was not satisfied with the 
work he put it aside, and nothing would induce him 
to go on with it. There were dozens of unfinished 
portraits in the garret of his house. 

Stuart had a very quick temper, and never could 
bear to be criticised. Once, when he was painting a 
lady, she rose from her seat, and came and looked 
over his shoulder, and made some criticism on the 
likeness. The artist managed to answer pleasantly, 
and for a few minutes he went on with his painting, 
fighting to keep down his temper. Then suddenly he 
rose, put down his brushes, and took the picture 
from the easel. " Excuse me, madam," he said, "but 
I cannot paint by direction." 

"But at least you will finish the picture?" cried 
the lady in dismay. 

"No, I cannot work on it any more," answered 
Stuart. 

The lady begged and implored him to forgive 
her, and go on with the picture; she even wept, but 
Stuart refused to touch it again. It was carried 
away and stored in the garret with the rest of his 
unfinished work, and the unhappy lady never saw 
it again. 

Soon after Stuart was settled in New York the Duke 
of Kent sent him word that he wished to have his 
portrait painted, and offered to send a warship for 
Stuart if he would return to England to do it, but 
the painter refused. He was at this very time 
anxious to paint a portrait of George Washington. 
Indeed, it was said that he had come back to America 
for that especial purpose. He would not leave the 



i68 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

country again until he had done it. He thought 
General Washington was the greatest man of his 
times. 

It was not until the winter of 1794, however, that 
Stuart went to Philadelphia to meet the President. 
Generally the painter was ready enough to talk, but 
when finally he found himself in the same room with 
Washington he was so overcome with awe that he 
hardly dared open his lips or say a word. If the 
President had not already heard from others how 
witty and talented Stuart was he must have thought 
him a dull fellow indeed. 

However, the sittings were arranged for, and in 
the spring of 1795 Stuart began upon the President's 
portrait. The first attempt he made was not a 
success. Perhaps he was still too much in awe of 
Washington to be at ease, or able to put his best work 
on it. At any rate he grew so discouraged that he 
refused to let any one see what he was doing, and 
finally he told people he had rubbed it all out. 

He afterward painted two other portraits of Wash- 
ington that seem to have pleased him better. One 
was painted for the Marquis of Lansdowne; the other 
is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. 

WTien the city of Washington became the capital 
of the United States Stuart and his family moved 
there, and later they went to live in Roxbury, one of 
the suburbs of Boston. While he was in Roxbury 
he painted portraits of many of the best-known peo- 
ple of Boston. 

A Hst of portraits made by Stuart after he came 
back to America would include at least eight hundred 
paintings. Among them are great names: Thomas 
Jefferson, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Revere, Mr. and Mrs. 



A FAMOUS PAINTER 



i6g 



John Adams, Madame Bonaparte, John Jacob Astor, 
and many others. 

In 1825 Stuart's health began to fail. His hand 
grew so tremulous that he could hardly place the 
colors on the canvas. He grew very sad and de- 
pressed, and only now and then did he show flashes 
of the wit and gayety that had once made him so 
charming. 

He died in July, 1828, and instead of bringing his 
body back to Rhode Island it was buried in the cem- 
etery of Boston Common. 

But though Stuart's grave is in Boston, and though 
so much of his life was spent away from Rhode Island, 
it was in Rhode Island that he was born, and it is 
Rhode Island that can claim as her son this great 
painter. 




GUbert Stuart's Old Home 



NOTE 

I. It was not an unusual thing, at this time, for masters to take their 
pupils to live with them in their own houses. 




" We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours " 



How, Once Upon A Time, 

A Rhode Island Man 

Became The Hero 

Of Lake Erie 




Perry Leaving the "Lawrence" for the "Niagara" 

OLIVER HAZARD PERRY went to sea as a 
midshipman when he was only twelve years 
old. The deck of the ship was his school 
and his playground. 

The trees he climbed were the tall, stark masts of 
the vessels, and instead of the rustle of the leaves he 
heard only the rattle of the rigging and the flap of 
the sails. 

Oliver loved the sea and the navy and rose steadily 
in the service.^ When only nineteen he was a 
lieutenant in command of the Nautilus on the Med- 
iterranean. Before he was twenty-four he had 
served in the war with Tripoli under Preble, and had 
also been master of the Revenge and commander of 
a fleet of seventeen gunboats, and had made himself 
known as a brave and capable officer. 

Our second war with England — the " Second War 
for Independence," as it was called — began in the 
summer of 1812. Some of the most important naval 
battles of that war were fought on the great lakes 
of Erie and Ontario. Those lakes cover almost five 
hundred miles of boundary between the United 
States and Canada. It was from Canada that the 
British threatened to invade the Northwestern 
States, and so the possession of the Great Lakes was 
very important both to them and to the Americans. 
From the lakes the gunboats could aid and protect 
the land forces of either side, and across them the 

175 



176 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

transports could carry troops and provisions far 
more easily than they could be sent by land. 

At the outbreak of the war the Americans had only 
one war-brig, the Oneida, on the lakes, but a number 
of merchant vessels were at once fitted out as war- 
ships and put under the command of Captain Isaac 
Chauncey. These vessels were only for the protec- 
tion of Lake Ontario, but orders were also given for 
another squadron to be built at Presque Isle, now 
Erie, for the defence of Lake Erie. Captain Perry 
was appointed commander of this fleet. 

At the time of his appointment Perry was in com- 
mand of a fleet in Narragansett Bay. He was 
ordered to send the best men from these vessels to 
Presque Isle and he himself was to report at once to 
Chauncey at Sackett's Harbor. 

Perry immediately sent fifty picked men oil on 
sledges to the northwest, and only twenty-four hours 
after he received the order he himself was on his way 
to Lake Ontario. With him he took his little brother, 
only thirteen years old. The weather was bitterly 
cold, a heavy snow lay on the ground, and the 
whole journcN' was made in a sleigh, with relays 
of horses. 

He reached Sackett's Harbor the 3d of March, 
made his report to Chauncey, and was at once sent 
on to Presque Isle- to hasten the building of his 
squadron'^ there. 

The building of this fleet was one of the remarkable 
feats of the war. The shipbuilders came all the 
way from Philadelphia and New York through an 
almost trackless wilderness, where they had never 
been before. The guns and ammunition and neces- 
sar}' furnishings for the vessels were brought from 



THE HERO OF LAKE ERIE 177 

hundreds of miles away on sleds or slow ox-carts, 
over difficult, almost impassable roads. Plowshares, 
horseshoes, axe-heads, everything in iron that could 
be gathered together was melted up to make the 
bars and braces and rivets for the ships. And in less 
than sLx months after the lumber was standing un- 
touched in the forest the vessels were finished and 
floating free upon the waters at the mouth of Cas- 
cade Creek, where they had been built. The ves- 
sels were finished at last and floated there stout and 
staunch. Arms and ammunition had been put on 
board. Their commander was ready and eager to 
sail out and meet the British; but the squadron lay 
idle and useless. There were not enough men to 
man the vessels. 

Perry was in despair. He wrote to Chauncey: 
''The enemy's fleet of six sails are now off the bar 
of this harbor . . . Give me men and I'll ac- 
quire, both for you and myself, glory and honor, or 
perish in the attempt." Again he wrote: "The 
enemy are within striking distance, my vessels ready, 
and not enough men to man them." And again: 
"For God's sake and yours and mine, send me men 
and I will have them all (the British vessels) in a day 
or two. Commodore Barclay, the British Com- 
mander, keeps just out of reach of our gunboats. 
. . . I long to be at him. Think of my situation; 
the enemy in sight, and yet obliged to bite my fingers 
with vexation for want of men." 

Finally men were sent, but instead of the trained 
seamen Perry had hoped for they were "a motley 
set, blacks and soldiers and boys. ' ' Very few of them 
had had any experience in seamanship. Still such 
as they were Perry determined to set out with them. 



178 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

He was too eager to engage with the British to 
wait any longer. 

It was on a clear, brilliant day in early August, 
1813, that the anchor was weighed, sails set wide, and 
one vessel after another, the squadron sailed proudly 
out upon the waters of the lake ready to meet the 
British and engage with them. 

But there was no enemy in sight. The British 
ships had vanished as completely as though they 
had never been there. For days they had been 
sailing up and down before the entrance to the creek, 
just out of gunshot, and seeming to taunt the 
American vessels and dare them to come out. And 
now they were gone. For three days Perry sailed 
up and down in search of the fleet. Then he learned 
where they were. They had sailed down to Maiden, 
on the Detroit River, to gather more men and a fresh 
store of provisions, and also to wait there until a 
large new vessel, the Detroit, should be finished. 

On the 9th of August Perry had a valuable rein- 
forcement. Captain EUiott came from Buffalo to 
join him, bringing one hundred men. Perry at 
once put him in command of the Niagara, which was 
the largest vessel in the fleet except the flagship, the 
Lawrence. Each of these large vessels carried twenty 
guns. Of the other vessels in the squadron, three 
were so small that they only carried one gun each. 
The men and officers, all told, numbered about 400. 

The British squadron had only six vessels, but 
they carried, all told, sixty-three guns, while the 
Americans had only fifty-four. They also had the 
advantage of being manned by trained and able 
seamen, many of whom had fought under Nelson.** 

By September ist Perry had become so impatient 



THE HERO OF LAKE ERIE 179 

to engage the British that he followed them down to 
Maiden, but he found their squadron had drawn in 
close to the shore, where they were protected by the 
land batteries. 

For a time Perry cruised up and down before them, 
hoping to tempt them to come out from their shelter, 
but they lay there quiet and motionless. At last he 
saw the uselessness of staying longer and sailed away 
and back to Put-in-Bay. This bay, thirty-four miles 
north of Maiden » was the harbor he had chosen as 
the meeting-place for his vessels after cruises. 

The loth of September, 18 13, dawned crisp and 
bright. A few scurries of rain in the early morning 
seemed only to clear the air. By ten o'clock the 
sun shone down from an almost cloudless sky and a 
light wind stirred among the rigging of the vessels. 

Early in the morning Perry's squadron had sailed 
out from the harbor to the open water of the lake. 
All sails were set to catch the faint breeze. It was 
barely ten o'clock when a cry rang out from the 
lookout at the masthead of the Lawrence: "Sail 
ho!" and almost immediately followed the signals 
to the other vessels: "Enemy in sight," and "Get 
under way." Far off, down toward the mouth of 
the Detroit River, the sails of the British war-vessels 
could be seen white against the blue of the sky. 
They were coming at last. 

The officers of the American squadron had already 
received written instructions from Perry as to the 
part they were to take in the battle. Now decks 
were cleared for action, and were sprinkled with 
water and covered with sand so that the men would 
not slip upon them. The gunners took their posi- 
tions beside their guns. 



I So ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

On board the Lawrence Perry made a short address 
to his men. As he finished his address a great blue 
battleflag was unfurled and held up to view. On it, 
in white letters, were the dying words of the brave 
Captain Lawrence: 

''Don't Give Up The Ship!'' 

"My brave lads," cried Perry, in a ringing voice, 
"this flag bears the last words of Captain Lawrence. 
Shall I hoist it?" A great shout went up from the 
men: "Ay, ay, sir! Ay, ay!" A moment later the 
blue flag was run up to the masthead. Cheer after 
cheer roared out across the water from every craft 
in the squadron. At the same time the wind caught 
the folds of the flag and blew it out so the words 
could be seen by aU: 

''Don't Give Up The Ship!" 

It was Perry's message for the day. The wind 
was so light that though Perry's squadron moved 
on steadily it could make but slow progress. It was 
necessary for him to get close to the enemy's fleet, 
for the American guns had a much shorter range 
than those of the British. The British would be able 
to fire upon Perry's vessels long before they would be 
able to return the shots. 

As the American fleet slowly drew on, Barclay's 
squadron ranged itself in a long line across the water. 
At the head of the line was the British flagship 
Detroit, with the small Chippewa close to her. Next 
to it came the Hunter. It was these two larger vessels 
and the Queen Charlotte that, a little later on, were 
to come near to destroying the Lawrence. 



THE HERO OF LAKE ERIE i8i 

Aboard his flagship Perry paced up and down the 
deck. His face was quiet and serene, but his eyes 
were blazing with exc'tement. The officers were at 
their stations. Beside their guns lounged the 
gunners. The men were stripped naked to the waist, 
and about their heads they had knotted their hand- 
kerchiefs to keep their long hair out of their eyes. 
Many of them were veterans who had already 
fought on the famous Constitution. 

Perry paused beside a group of them and looked 
from face to face. "I need not say anything to 
you/" he said, "You know how to beat those fel- 
lows," The men grinned and their teeth showed 
between their parted lips. At a quarter to twelve 
the two flagships were still over a mile apart. The 
Niagara and some of the smaller American gunboats 
had fallen behind. 

Then upon the Detroit a bugle was sounded. Its 
notes came faint but clear across the water. Imme- 
diately the British bands broke out with "Rule 
Brittania." There was a great cheer from the 
British, and a spurt of flame shot out from the side 
of the Detroit. Her long gun spoke out with a 
roar and a shot came bounding across the water to- 
ward the Lawrence. It fell short, but a few minutes 
later another shot, better aimed, crashed through the 
bow of the flagship. 

The American gunners started to their places, but 
Perry lifted his hand. "Steady, boys, steady!" he 
cried. His vessels were still too far from the enemy 
for the guns to injure them. 

The gunners sank back and the American squad- 
ron swept slowly on, without returning one of the 
shots that now began to pour hotly upon them, 



i82 ONCE UPON A TIMP: IN RHODE ISLAND 

splintering the masts, tearing the sails, and wounding 
the men, 

Barclay had determined to direct his guns mainly 
at the Lawrence. If she could be destroyed, and her 
gallant commander with her, there would be little 
trouble in disposing of the rest of the fleet. 

It was full ten minutes after the Detroit's first 
shot when a gun roared out from the American 
squadron. It was fired from the Scorpion by young 
Stephen Champlin, a cousin of Commodore Perry's. 
It was he, too, who was to fire the last shot in the 
engagement, as he had the first. 

And now at last Perry gave the longed-for signal 
and his gunners sprang to their places. A moment 
later and their guns sent back a savage answer to the 
shots of the enemy. Several of the British ships 
were struck, but the American squadron had already 
been badly damaged while getting within reach of 
the enemy. The Lawrence had suffered most heavily, 
for, according to Barclay's plans, it was against her 
that their guns had been principally turned. 

The Detroit, the Hunter, and the Queen Charlotte 
had gathered about her in a crescent and swept her 
with their shots. The Niagara, which was to have 
helped her by engaging the Queen Charlotte, still 
lagged far behind, almost out of gunshot. In a 
short time the spars and rigging of the Lawrence were 
carried away, her sails were in rags, her decks were 
wet with blood. So many men were injured that not 
enough were left to fire the guns. Many of the 
wounded men were carried down to the cockpit, but 
a shell crashing through killed a number of them. 

A lieutenant who had come up to speak to Perry 
was struck and fatally wounded. A shot struck a 



■ THE HERO OF LAKE ERH-: 183 

hammock and drove it against Perry's young brother 
who stood beside him. The blow threw him across 
the deck, but he was unhurt. 

Lieutenant Yarnell, fearfully wounded, but calm 
and cool, came to Perry, and told him every officer 
in his division had been killed. The Commodore 
gave him more men to fill their places. Presently 
Yarnell came back and told him that all these men, 
too, had been either killed or disabled. Perry had no 
more men to give him. "You must make out for 
yourself," he said. Without a word Yarnell went 
back to his place and began to aim and fire what 
guns he could with his own hands. 

A seaman, black with smoke and powder, rushed 
up to Perry, crying wildly: "For God's sake give 
me more men!" but Perry had no more men to give 
him. Some of the wounded crawled up on deck to 
do what they could, but gun after gun fell silent. 

The Lawrence was now little more than a floating 
wreck. 

Some time before this Captain Perry had signalled 
to the Niagara to bring up the gunboats that were 
lagging behind. Captain Elliott passed the signal 
on to them, but he himself still hung back. It was 
not until after the last gun of the Lawrence had been 
silenced, and it might well be thought that her brave 
commander had been killed, that the Niagara got 
under way. Then her sails were set wide, and stead- 
ily she bore on toward the enemy. 

Perry's heart rose with hope as he watched her ap- 
proach. Then he saw she was not coming to the 
Lawrence at all. Unless she could be stopped she 
would pass it by. 

The Commodore thought of a bold expedient. 



i84 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

He had a small boat lowered from the Lawrence and 
manned by a few stout oarsmen who were still left 
unwounded. Then the great blue battle flag was 
run down from the masthead. When the British 
saw the flag drop, they thought it was a sign of sur- 
render, and cheer after cheer sounded from their 
vessels. Soon, however, they fell silent as they saw 
the stars and stripes were still left waving above the 
wreck of the flagship.^ Wondering, they watched 
the Lawrence, trying to make out what it was that 
was happening aboard of her. 

Suddenly out from under her bows shot the small 
boat. The sturdy rowers bent to their oars. Erect 
among them stood Commodore Perry. He was in 
full uniform and bore the battle flag in his hand. 
Its folds, wrapped about him, now floated out in the 
freshening wind. Beside him sat his little brother. 
He was crossing to the Niagara to take command of 
her. 

So sure was he of reaching her in safety and of 
still winning the battle that he had changed his sea- 
man's dress for a uniform, so as to be ready to receive 
the British officers when they came to surrender to 
him. 

Between the flagship and the Niagara lay half a 
mile of open water. The air was heavy with smoke, 
and the sun shone through it on the water with a 
strange, unnatural light. All about towered the 
great, shattered, blackened battleships. 

The small boat had hardly shot out into the open 
before the Commodore was recognized and the guns 
of all the British fleet were turned on that one small 
boat. Their mouths roared out, and shot and shell 
flew thick around it. An oar was shattered in a 



THE HERO OF LAKE ERIE 185 

rower's hand. The salt water was dashed up in 
the oarsmen's faces till they were half blinded, 
but strangely enough no one was hurt. Just before 
Perry reached the Niagara a shot struck his boat, 
tearing a hole in the side. Instantly the Commodore 
tore off his coat and stuffed it in the hole, and so he 
kept the boat from sinking. 

Fifteen minutes after leaving the Lawrence the 
Commodore sprang to the deck of the Niagara.^ 

He was met by Captain Elliott. "How goes the 
day?" he asked. 

"Badly enough," answered Perry sternly; and 
then, "Why are the gunboats so far astern? " 

"I'll bring them up," said Elliott. 

"Do so," said Perry shortly. 

Captain Elliott now took the Commodore's place 
in the small boat and started back toward the gun- 
boats, while Perry made ready for a fresh attack upon 
the enemy. 

With the coming of the Niagara the fortunes of the 
day were turned. Though the Lawrence had been 
almost shot to pieces, the British vessels themselves 
had been badly damaged. Perry had his seamen 
crowd on all the sail the Niagara could carry and bore 
down upon the enemy. The Niagara swept through 
the British line at full speed between the Detroit, 
Queen Charlotte, and Hunter on one side and the 
Lady Provost and Chippewa on the other. As she 
passed she poured out a deadly broadside. 

The guns had been heavily loaded and she was so 
close to the enemy that every shot told. 

As soon as she had passed through the line the 
Niagara was brought about and again poured out 
broadside after broadside. 



i86 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

The Lady Provost was almost cut to pieces. 

The Detroit suffered heavily, while the other ves- 
sels were almost helpless against the heavy fire. 
Eight minutes after the Niagara cut through the line 
the British flagship lowered its flag in sign of sur- 
render. 

Cheer after cheer sounded from the decks of the 
American fleet. Even the wounded on the Lawrence 
joined in feebly. Standing there on the Niagara 
Perry caught off his cap, took out an old envelope, 
and resting it on the cap wrote in pencil this message : 

'^We have met the enemy and they are ours — two 
ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours 
with great respect and esteem, 0. H. Perry." ^ 

This dispatch was sent at once to General Harri- 
son, who was in command of the American land 
forces. Perry then returned to the Lawrence, and 
it was to her ruined deck that the British officers 
came to make their surrender to her commander. 
Their looks were weary and sad. Many of them 
were wounded. Admiral Barclay was so badly hurt 
that he had to be helped on board. One after an- 
other they offered their swords to Perry, but one by 
one the swords were refused. His warm desire was 
to treat the enemy with all honor and courtesy. 

The British deeply appreciated this generous be- 
havior to them. 

After they had left the Lawrence and returned to 
their own vessels. Perry threw himself down on the 
bare boards of the deck where he had been standing. 
He was so exhausted that he at once fell asleep and 
slept for some hours. All were careful that he should 
not be disturbed, but while he slept the news of the 
great victory he had won for our country was spread- 



THE HERO OF LAKE ERIE 



187 



ing everywhere. The newspapers of the day were 
filled with praises of his bravery, his daring, his 
nobility, and his generous behavior to the enemy, and 
it was then that he was given the title which has ever 
since been his : 

The Hero of Lake Erie. 




The Hero of Lake Erie 



NOTES 

1. Oliver Hazard Perry was born at South Kingstown, Rhode Island, 
August 21, 1785. 

His father was a naval officer and his four brothers were also trained 
in the service. 

2. Presque Isle, now the town of Erie. 

3. The construction of this fleet was under the charge of Sailing-Master 
Daniel Dobbins and Noah Brown, a shipwright of New York City. 

4. The Lake Erie fleet consisted of the brig Lawrence, twenty guns; brig 
Niagara, twenty guns; brig Caledonia, three guns; schooner Ariel, four 
guns; schooner Scorpion, two guns and two s\\dvel?, sloop Trippe, one 
gun; schooner Tigress, one gun; schooner Porcupine, one gun. 

In the British fleet were si.x vessels: the Detroit, nineteen guns and two 
howitzers; Queen Charlotte, seventeen guns and one howitzer; Lady Pro- 
vost, thirteen guns and one howitzer; brig Hunter, ten guns; sloop Little 
Belt, three guns, and schooner Chippewa, one gun and two swivels. 

5 . Commodore Perry's dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy ran as fol- 
lows: "U. S. Brig Niagara, off the Western Sister Head of Lake Erie, 
September 10, 1813, 4 p. m. Sir — It has pleased the Almighty to give 
to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on 
this lake. The British Squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, one 
schooner, and one sloop, have at this moment surrendered to the force 
under my command after a sharp conflict. I have the honor to be, sir, 
very respectfully, 

"Your obedient servant, 

"O. H. Perry." 

6. Perry left the Z-a-ttrnz^e in charge of Yarnell. He was to hold out or 
surrender as he thought best. After consulting with the other officers 
who were left, Yarnell decided to haul down his flag. The vessel was 
only a helpless wreck, and the shots from the enemy were only causing 
greater suffering. When the wounded men in the cockpit heard what 
had been done they cried to Yarnell to sink the ship, that they might 
not faU into the hands of the British. This Yarnell refused to do. It 
was well that he did not, for scarcely more than half an hour later Perry 
returned to the flagship, and it was on her deck that the British officers 
came to make their surrender. 

7. In a letter written to the Secretary of the Navy, Perry gives the fol- 
lowing account of his taking command of the Niagara: "At half-past two, 
the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to bring his vessel, the 
Niagara, gallantly into close action; I immecUately went on board of her, 
when he anticipated my wish by volunteering to bring the schooners, 
which had been kept astern by the lightness of the wind, into close ac- 
tion." There has been much discussion over this account, and it is felt by 
many to be a very generous attempt to make the best of the slowness of 
the Niagara and several of the gunboats in giving assistance to the Lau- 
rence. 




Rhode Island Boldly Refused to Sign 



How, Once Upon A Time, 
Rhode Island Bore Her 
Part In The Con- 
federation 




Brown University in 1776 



IT WAS the year 1781, and all over the colonies 
there was the greatest joy and triumph. Bells 
were rung and cannon fired. For the war was 
almost over. Cornwallis had surrendered to Wash- 
ington at Yorktown. The American colonies had 
won their independence from England, and the 
French had helped them, and everywhere in public 
places could be seen the crossed flags of France and 
i\merica, with the British flag under them. 

Down in Georgia and South Carolina the fighting 
was not yet entirely over. The British still held a 
few places there, but Greene and his forces were soon 
to drive them out. The Rhode Island troops were 
no longer needed in the North, so some of them were 
sent on down to join Greene, but the greater number 
came home to Rhode Island again. 

Poor and gaunt and ragged these troops looked as 
they marched along the Rhode Island roads. Many 
of them were without hats or shoes. Some had 
nothing but cotton shirts and trousers to wear. 
The flags they carried had been almost shot to pieces 
on many a battlefield. But ragged and poor as 
they were, they laughed and joked on their way with 
aU the cheerfulness that had made them the wonder 
of the French army. 

To the Rhode Island people who waved their caps 

193 



194 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

to them and shouted and hurrahed these ragged 
soldiers seemed nothing less than heroes ; they had 
been fighting for the freedom of the whole country. 

But there was sorrow as well as rejoicing in the 
little state when the troops came marching home. 
Many a brave soldier would never come back. More 
than a third of the Rhode Island regiments had 
fallen on the battlefield or died of disease — smallpox 
or camp fevers. Even of those who returned many 
were maimed or crippled or sick. 

The people at home had suffered as well as those 
who fought. Farms had been ruined and houses 
destroyed. There had been so little food in the state 
that many had almost died of starvation. Newport 
was ruined, its trees and orchards gone, its wharves 
destroyed, and many of its finest buildings burned. 
Bristol, Providence, Warren, and other towns had all 
suffered severely. Brown University had been closed 
to the students and used as a barracks and hospital. 
All trading had ceased. Even the ferries between 
the dift'erent towns had stopped running. While the 
British were there the people had been afraid to ven- 
ture out on the water. They feared the guns of the 
British batteries and the British warships that lay 
just off the shore. 

But now the British were gone. Their fortifica- 
tions were deserted. The little Rhode Island chil- 
dren clambered about the earthworks and hunted for 
the bullets and cannon balls that had fallen there. 

The ferries again plied between the towns. The 
business of the colony could once more be taken up, 
the farming, the fishing, and the trading. But it 
was hard to begin again when there was such pov- 
erty everywhere. The National Government itself 



RHODE ISLAND IN THE CONFEDERATION 195 

was in need of money. ^ It could not even pay the 
soldiers who had fought for it. It called on the 
states to raise $8_,ooo,ooo for Government uses, for 
that was the very least that would be needed for the 
coming year of 1782. Rhode Island's share of this 
amount would be $216,000, but the little state was so 
poor that it was impossible for it to raise that much. 
It offered to pay a part of it with supplies for the 
army, but the Government would not agree to 
this. 

In order to raise at least a part of the sum, fresh 
taxes were laid on the people of the Httle state ; but 
already they had more than they could pay. In 
some cases, where the men had no money, the tax- 
collectors took their sheep and cattle from them to 
make up for the taxes they owed. This roused such a 
storm of ill-feeling, particularly in some of the Massa- 
chusetts towns, that in several places the people 
banded together to resist the collectors. They even 
attacked them and took away from them the cattle 
they had already seized. 

Congress now proposed another plan for raising 
money for the Government. This plan was that 
each state should pay a tax or "impost" of 5 per 
cent, on all articles that were brought into it from 
foreign countries. Only a few articles were to be 
brought in free ; of these a list was given. This plan 
was first proposed in 178 1. 

Eleven of the states agreed to it almost at once. 
Only Rhode Island and Georgia refused to consent. - 

In 1777, while the war was stiU going on, the 
thirteen states had entered into a confederation, or 
"league of friendship," with each other. This con- 
federation was for the sake of mutual help and 



196 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

strength against the enemy, and for "mutual and 
general welfare."^ 

In the Articles of Confederation that were written 
out for this league it was expressly said that each 
state was to keep its "sovereignty, freedom, and 
independence." Congress was to govern the gen- 
eral affairs of the league, but it was to have no right 
to control the trade of any state. Neither was it to 
have a right to levy a tax on the people of any state. 

Rhode Island was very jealous of her liberty, the 
liberty that had been planned by Roger WiUiams 
and established by her charter. She would not have 
entered into the confederation at aU unless she had 
been assured she would still be perfectly free in all 
state matters. 

Now to give to Congress the right to tax her for- 
eign trade was to change the Articles of Confeder- 
ation. If money was to be raised in Rhode Island, 
her people claimed the right to raise it in their own 
way, and not by federal taxation. 

Besides, Rhode Island was afraid that if this right 
were now given to Congress that body would soon 
claim other rights over the states as well. Before 
long they would find they were no longer free. So 
she was firm in her refusal to agree to it. 

But this refusal blocked the whole matter, for the 
time at least. Naturally none of the other states 
wished to pay a tax unless aU would, and the feeling 
in Congress against the little state was very bitter. 

Rhode Island had still another reason for refusing 
to agree to the impost. 

She carried on a larger foreign trade for her size than 
any other state. This meant that the imposts she 
would have to pay would be more than that of others. 



RHODE ISLAND IN THE CONFEDERATION 197 

The merchants of Rhode Island were already taking 
up their commerce again, and now their vessels 
journeyed farther than ever before. They had 
opened up a trade with China, and many new and 
beautiful and curious things were brought into the 
state from that country — silks, feathers, spices, 
preserved fruits, fans, quicksilver, window-screens, 
umbrellas — which were a great curiosity at that 
time — and many other things. 

But there was another trade by which fortunes 
could be made more quickly and easily than by 
commerce with China. Before the war, when New- 
port was rich and prosperous, many of her wealthiest 
merchants made their money by buying and selling 
slaves. Now that they were poor it was no wonder 
they longed to take up the trade again.'* Such large 
fortunes could be made in that way, and made so 
easily. 

In i774RhodeIslandhadpassed a law that no more 
slaves should be brought into the colony, but there 
were other places where the Newport traders could 
sell them — Georgia, the Carolinas, and other South- 
ern States; so again their ships were bringing in 
cargoes of blacks that cost the shipowners little, and 
sold for high prices, and money was coming into 
Rhode Island for slave-traders at least, if for few 
others. In 1787 the assembly of the state passed a 
law forbidding all slave-trading, but even after that 
the business was still carried on secretly by many of 
her merchants. 

Trading, fishing, and farming were not the only 
industries in Rhode Island, however. Their manu- 
factures began to grow in number and importance, 
particularly in Providence. But the English were 



198 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

sending large quantities of their own manufactures 
into America, and were selling them more cheaply 
than Americans could afford to sell their own things.^ 
Congress was still urging Rhode Island to agree to the 
impost, and at last, in 1785, she gave her consent. 
She gave her consent, however, not that the Govern- 
ment might raise money by it, but that her trade 
might be protected better than she could protect it 
herself. 

Though the war had practically ended when Corn- 
wallis surrendered at Yorktown, it was not until 
1783 that a treaty of peace was signed between Eng- 
land and America. The first article in this treaty 
acknowledged the independence of the states. 

When the treaty was received in America the 
states were once more filled with rejoicing. Once 
more cannon were fired and bells were rung. At 
Providence there was a procession, and sermons and 
addresses were given in the First Baptist Meeting- 
house. 

At high noon the proclamation was read from the 
balcony of the State House and other public places. 
Crowds gathered to hear it. There were shouts of 
joy; hats were tossed in the air, flags were waved, 
and military salutes were fired. A public dinner was 
given at the State House. The frigate Alliance, 
which had just returned from the West Indies, fired 
salutes, and all the shipping was decorated with 
flags. In the evening the town and harbor were 
illuminated, and fireworks were set off. 

The rejoicings at Newport were no less than at 
Providence. A figure was made and dressed to repre- 
sent Benedict Arnold, the traitor, and was burned 
by the Newport people with shouts and cheers. 



RHODE ISLAND IN THE CONFEDERATION 199 

Other towns all over the states celebrated with 
joy the proclamation of peace. 

Our French allies had already left the country. 
They had sailed from Boston in 1782. On their 
way to that town they stopped at Providence for a 
time. The officers had been quartered in the houses 
there, and had been made as welcome as when they 
had stayed in Newport. 

Brown University was now no longer needed as a 
hospital. It was once more opened to students, and 
in 1783 commencement exercises were held there, and 
live students were given the degree of Bachelor of Arts. 

In that same year a very important law was passed 
in Rhode Island. It was a law that gave to Roman 
Catholics all the rights as citizens that other people 
had. These rights they had never had before.^ 

But there was another important act passed by 
the legislature that was to prove disastrous indeed to 
the little state, and that threw its people into distress 
and panic. There was so little ready money in the 
state, and it was so badly needed, that the legisla- 
ture decided to issue paper money. A large amount 
of it was printed and sent out among the people.^ 

Many of the wisest people in the state were very 
much opposed to this issue of paper money, but the 
party that was in favor of it was the party that was 
in power. This paper money had no real value, as 
silver and gold have, or as much value as our own 
paper money has nowadays. There was but little 
gold or silver money in Rhode Island, yet great 
quantities of paper money were issued by the legis- 
lature. If the people had demanded gold and silver 
for the paper they held the state could not possibly 
have given it to them, and so all the paper money 



200 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

was worth little or nothing. No one outside of the 
state was willing to accept it. Even the Rhode 
Island dealers and merchants were very unwilling to 
give their goods for it. Many of them, indeed, re- 
fused to accept it, and would not sell their goods 
unless they were paid in silver or gold. 

But the assembly was determined to make the 
people use it. It passed an act by which any one 
who refused to take the paper money when it was 
offered to him was to be fined $500; besides this, he 
was to lose his right to vote and all other rights as a 
freeman.^ 

The farmers and country people were, as a rule, 
very glad this act had been passed, for many of them 
had mortgaged their lands for this paper money. 
Now they could begin to use it, for no one would dare 
to refuse it. 

So they came into the towns to pay their bills and 
buy goods with it. But rather than be forced into 
taking it the merchants closed their shops. Nothing 
could be bought. 

To retaliate on the townspeople the farmers no 
longer brought their produce to the markets. If 
the tradesmen would not take their money, they 
should not have their goods, either, their butter and 
eggs, their vegetables, and poultry. Besides, the 
country people themselves had no wish to be paid 
for these things with still more paper money. Al- 
ready they had more than enough. 

The markets as well as the shops were closed. 
Trading ceased. Business came to a standstill. 
All over the state there was the greatest want and 
distress. People could not get enough to eat. In 
Newport there was a riot; a mob gathered and tried 



RHODE ISLAND IN THE CONFEDERATION 201 

to force the grain merchants to give them corn for 
paper money. In Providence the town council bor- 
rowed five hundred dollars and sent outside the 
state to buy corn for the people. The distress was 
almost as great as in the war times, but now it was 
caused by the people of Rhode Island itself instead of 
by an outside country. 

It was in May that the paper money party came 
into power, and forced their worthless paper upon 
the state. From that time on, for four months, the 
condition of Rhode Island became more and more 
miserable and the people grew poorer and poorer. 

But in September, four months later, the matter 
was brought before the Supreme Court of Rhode 
Island. A Newport butcher had refused to accept 
paper money for his meat. When a fine was de- 
manded from him, instead of paying he appealed to 
the court. 

The court listened to the case, considered it, and 
gave as its decision that he need not pay the fine. 
It also decided that the assembly had no right to 
force people to accept paper money, or to lay a fine 
on them if they refused to do it. 

As soon as the merchants and traders learned of 
this decision they were ready to take up business 
again. Shops were opened, produce was again 
brought to the markets, and the streets were filled 
with busy life. People were no longer afraid to offer 
their goods for sale since they would not have to take 
paper money; they could demand good gold and 
silver in exchange. 

But while Rhode Island had been going through 
these times of panic and disaster the National Gov- 
ernment had been considering a great and important 



202 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

matter. It was planning a close and more definite 
union among the states. 

As long as the war with England lasted the states 
had been held together by their common danger as 
well as by friendliness. They all needed each other 
in their fight against the common enemy. But now 
that the war was over they found they needed a 
closer league than the Articles of Confederation gave 
them. It would be necessary to have a stronger 
central government, and to have some one to act as 
the head of the nation ; not a king — the free states 
would never again submit to be ruled by a king^ — but 
a President who should be chosen by themselves, and 
should hold the position for a few years only. 

More power must be given to Congress, too, and a 
court was appointed to decide quarrels or disagree- 
ments between the states. This court was to be 
called the Supreme Court. Whatever decisions it 
gave must be accepted by the states as final. 

These three, Congress, the President, and the 
Supreme Court were to form the central government 
for the Union of States. 

This plan of government was written out in a 
Constitution, and the states were asked to ratify the 
Constitution to show they agreed to it, and were 
willing to join the Union. 

Delaware, the smallest state but one, was the first 
to ratify. One after another ten states followed the 
lead of Delaware. Only two, Rhode Island and North 
Carolina, were left. Of these North Carolina was 
undecided, but Rhode Island boldly refused to sign. 

She declared (as she had once before declared about 
the impost) that this plan would interfere with her 
liberty. 



RHODE ISLAND IN THE CONFEDERATION 203 

When Rhode Island had refused to agree to the 
impost she had blocked the whole matter. But this 
Union of the States was a different affair. She 
might refuse to join, but she could not hinder the 
others from uniting. She would simply be left out, 
and this would place her in a dangerous position. 
She would be like a foreign state in the midst of an- 
other nation. She could neither hope nor demand 
their help in case she was in distress or danger. 

Many people in the state realized all this. They 
were more than eager that Rhode Island should 
join the Union. But these were not the people who 
were in power. They could do little as long as the 
assembly was opposed to it. Vainly they urged and 
entreated the assembly to call a convention to 
consider the matter, and to talk it over. Again 
and again the assembly refused, or put them off 
with excuses. 

In May of the year 1789 they sent a piteous peti- 
tion. They wrote: "We have not an alliance or 
treaty of commerce with any nation on earth, we are 
utterly unable to defend ourselves against an enemy, 
we have no . . . protection or defence but from 
the United States of America." But even still, 
in spite of their appeals and arguments, no conven- 
tion was called. 

But Congress, which had been patient so long, now 
passed the first measure against the interests of 
Rhode Island. It declared that since Rhode Island 
had not joined the Union the time had come to treat 
her as a foreign power. Now all trade between her 
and the other states would be taxed, just as the com- 
merce between America and England was. 

This action of Congress threw Rhode Island into 



204 ONCE UPON A TIME IN RHODE ISLAND 

the greatest dismay and confusion. To place a duty 
on her trading meant ruin for her merchants and 
traders, and for the whole state. Eagerly she en- 
treated Congress to wait, before passing this law, un- 
til she could again consider the matter of joining the 
Union. 

Congress, unwilling to seem to use force with the 
little state, agreed to this. They agreed to wait until 
the 19th of January in the coming year, 1790. 

But before that time Rhode Island had reconsid- 
ered the matter; she had changed her decision. She 
had agreed to accept the Constitution, and had en- 
tered into the Union of the United States of America. 

In Providence and Newport the news of this deci- 
sion was received with the greatest joy and relief. 
All over the state, indeed, the greatest satisfaction 
was shown. Rhode Island was saved. It was one of 
the Union, and at the next session of the Rhode Is- 
land Assembly, instead of closing, as always before, 
with the words "God save the state," the prayer 
now was "God save the United States of America." 

Rhode Island was one of them. 




The First Umbrella 



NOTES 

1. By the time the Revolutionary War was ended the debt of the 
United States amounted to about seventy million dollars. Of this 
amount the Federal Government owed forty-five million; the rest was 
owed by the several states. England during the past seven years had 
doubled her national debt; it now amounted to two hundred and forty 
miUions of pounds. 

2. In this matter of refusing to agree to the impost Rhode Island was 
not so much alone as her detractors were fond of asserting. Few of the 
states were unanimous in their approval of the measure. Georgia never 
acted upon it, and Virginia presently repealed her grant. ("History of 
the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.") 

3. The Article of Confederation read: "A League of Friendship with 
each other for the common defence, the security of their liberties, and 
iheir mutual and general welfare." 

4. The merchants of those days seemed to see there was very little 
difference between the negroes and any other salable merchandise. In a 
letter dated 1737, a certain Mr. Brown of Rhode Island wrote: "My 
Gineman (slave ship) is arrived. You may have a slave if you cum or 
send Befoar they are Gon." And in another letter he advises his brother, 
if he cannot sell liis slaves to his mind, to bring some home. "I beheve 
they wiU sell well. Get molasses or sugar. Make dispatch, for that is 
the life of trade." 

5. England charged a high duty on aU American goods sent into her 
markets. 

6. "The most important act of this session (of the Assembly of 1783) 
. . . was a short statute extending to Roman Catholic citizens the same 
rights with the Protestants, thus repeaUng in effect the disabUng clause 
(Catholics excepted) which had crept in no one knows how or when in the 
act which defined the requisites of citizenship." . . . "That a law 
excluding Roman Catholics as such would be a violation of the spirit 
of the charter, if not its letter also, all who read that instrument will 
admit." (Arnold's "History of the State of Rhode Island.") 

7. "It must not be inferred that Rhode Island was alone in this matter 
. . . In the end only four of the thirteen states escaped the paper 
mone}- craze." (" State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.") 

8. The passage of this act was strongly opposed by Providence, New- 
port, Westerly, and Bristol. The Providence deputies entered a formal pro- 
test, but tlieir protest was disregarded. 




THE COUNTRY lAFE PBE88 
GABDEN CITY, N. y. 



